Ep. 35: Jeff Cunningham on Individualized Coaching and Boston Readiness

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There's victory in trying. You know, I always tell people the crime isn't trying, the crime is never starting to try.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Darn it. Come on, let's go. Just go try. Just go try. Because I can tell you, um, outside of just a few people who are just sort of like the luck lottery winners, right? It's kinda like a guy that has his retirement plan winning the lottery. Well, that's not a plan, right? Almost nothing good ever happened to people who don't try. Right? When I say good, I mean something on this performance base that's notable. Typically that takes effort. Go try, go try. There's victory in there.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Welcome back to Through Their Stride. I'm your host, Sam Sutton, and today I'm joined by Texas-based running coach Jeff Cunningham, the founder of Cunningham Running, and a coach known for his thoughtful, individualized approach to training. Jeff has a plethora of runners heading to the Boston Marathon this week, and we dive deep into his mindset and training philosophy behind preparing athletes for a race like that, as well as the joy he finds in staying grounded and living in reality when it comes to training. I'm so excited to share a bit of Coach Jeff's story with you all. So without further ado, let's welcome Jeff Cunningham to the show. Welcome back to Through Their Stride. I'm your host, Sam Sutton, and today I am joined by one of my favorite coaches. And I'm kind of starstruck right now, Jeff Cunningham. Jeff, welcome on to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Man, I'm happy to be here. I hope you're doing well.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, doing good. Yeah. I uh um uh like I said you before the show, I've been wanting to get you on. You've got a lot of good insight and a lot of uh a lot of uh good things that my listeners would would love to hear. So, but let's first talk about so you're going to Boston this weekend for like the biggest race for roadrunners. So um, what's that shaping up like and and how many runners you got going there?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Um yeah, um I've got I've got several, I've got about probably about 15 uh racing in Boston. Um, and I have three uh women in the pro field. So we're gonna have a pretty intense day. Um the weather looks like it's pretty solid right now, looks like low 40s, um, with a wind uh that's blowing from west to east. So they're gonna have a predominating tailwind for a large portion of the race, which could make for some really fast racing. Um, if the rain holds off, I think we could have one of the faster days of Boston Marathon history, but um, we'll just have to wait and see on Monday.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Nice. Yeah, my uh uh my mom ran that race twice um when I was growing up. And she ran it, she qualified in 97 and they get an 03. And she said the weather is so unpredictable. Like you can see the weather like three days out, and you're like, you know, this is gonna be so great and wonderful when you get there and it's raining and pouring, and you're like, well, never mind.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah, and that's why, you know, um we don't know yet, but it's coming up, and um uh um right now everything looks pretty solid. Um, pretty excited about it. It's always a good time. I mean, listen, Emboss is one of the, if not the iconic marathons in the world. And so there's so much emotion, there's so much pageantry, there's so much tradition. Um, there's a lot of sort of uh um hubbub and tension in the air, and getting your athletes to manage it all appropriately is actually a bigger challenge than it is in most other races, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's it's the biggest thing. Like the pressure is definitely there from the moment you qualify. So I can imagine that could be pretty tight.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yeah, and you know, just a logistics of the start, getting bust up to Hopkinton, and then for the people who are not in the pro field, just sort of sitting out in the elements for a while. Um, the race has a really late start. So you're starting at 10 a.m., 10:30, even some people starting at 11 a.m. when they're used to a marathon step start at 7 a.m. So your eating schedule is off. Um, there's just a whole lot of disjointedness to it that athletes have to manage and they have to be really careful. Um, even pacing because it's 16 miles, basically net downhill to start the race. Um, so there's a lot of nuance to the day um that also makes it incredibly exhilarating um because you have to manage it. And, you know, when a runner goes and has a good day at Boston, it's just um really, really meaningful for them.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah, yeah. And I was gonna ask, you know, for you for someone to get someone to Boston, that's like as a coach, probably no better feeling to see them get there and achieve their goals. So, what does that give you as a coach?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Oh man, you know, it just feels really, really good because qualifying for the Boston Marathon is really difficult. And um the reality is it's getting more difficult by the year. Um, you know, it's gonna be pretty soon where the youngest age group on the men's side, you're gonna have to run under 250 to even be able to get a spot on the starting line. And, you know, I mean, for a lot of pro runners and for a lot of elite runners, there's things to qualify for. You know, you've got Olympic trials, you've got um um um elite fields that you can get into and gold label races, et cetera. You know, but for your age grouper, qualifying for the Boston Marathon is a bit, you have to be careful saying this, but a bit of a little bit of a um, I don't want to say a status symbol, but it is sort of a line of demarcation of like, okay, I'm I'm really good here. And this is uh this is my Olympics, you know? So it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah, awesome. Well, going back to you, so um, a lot of my listeners, you know, they're Texas runners, so they probably know you. You uh ran at Baylor, you've been coaching for a while, coach coach, main coach for uh BPN and for Nick Bear. But talk a little bit about yourself and how you got into coaching uh from running and and also a little bit about what your running journey was like growing up.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah, you know, when I was a little kid, um I grew up in Northeast Texas, and my dad had done a little bit of running in the Air Force. So um he just said, Hey, you want to try out to go out and run this race? And I thought, oh my God, we get to run in the street. These are things that we're told that we're never allowed to do. And so 1984 went out and ran my first uh road race at a little two-mile race in Tyler, Texas. Um, loved it, and then just started running little 5Ks, ran at 10K here and there um as a kid, you know, and then um ended up running summer track at a pretty high level, you know, um back then AAU, still a thing, was big back then. Um then we had the precursor to USA track and field. It was called TAC, which is the Athletics Congress, right? And so I ran in all of those national programs um and uh uh uh ran pretty well, got the bug, started running pretty well competitively, and then by the time I got to high school, things were really rolling. Um had the benefit of some great mentorship and some great competitive opportunities at Lee High in Tyler and um ended up uh uh signing with Baylor University, you know, um after having a a pretty good career at the high school level. Um sort of earned my stripes on the racing circuit, running mostly 1600, 3200 meter run and um cross country during the fall and um and then went to Baylor University. Um back then that was before the Big 12. Now that was uh fall of 1993, I was a freshman in college, so that was the old Southwest conference days, right? And so that was a zany, fun, um, very unique collegiate experience. It was the only large major Division I conference in the United States that was encompassed completely in one state, right? University of Arkansas left the conference in 1991, and they were the only non-Texas school in the conference. So it was Texas, Texas AM, Baylor, SMU Rice, Texas Tech, um, and um um Baylor. And man, I tell you what, we had a we had a we had a good time. It was wild and woolly, and uh uh what a rewarding experience it was.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah. My dad uh grew up an Arkansas fan because he was uh uh he he was born and raised there, and um he was always like, Why is my team always playing Texas every week? And it's like, oh wait, it's like multiple Texas teams because that was all the Southwestern Conference.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Right. Then they left and went to the Southeast Conference, and that's all she wrote, you know. Uh uh, but um what a unique uh collegiate experience when most of uh the men and most of the women on these cross-country teams, and I say most, I would say 70%, 80% of the rosters were all Texas-based uh young men and women. So we all ran against each other. I remember my first collegiate um conference meet was at Norbuck Park in Dallas, the Southwest Conference cross-country championships in 1993. And it looked like we were rerunning the 1992 um high school state championships. Um, you know, we had uh Jason Lund from Fort Ben Dallas and Adam Riser from Houston Bel Air. We had uh the Torres brothers from Aldi MacArthur and uh Andres Gomez from LD Bell was over at TCU, and and then uh um I was there with John Riley from Waco Midway. We ran for Baylor and we just lined it up, and it felt like we were rerunning the state meet on some level. It was it was a hell of a time, man.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

That's amazing. Yeah, that yeah, that sounds like a heck of a race. That's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

It was intense, man, and we knew each other because we'd been battling sometimes since we were freshmen in high school. You just showed up and put on a different color shirt and went and tried to kick each other's ass again, man. It was fun. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

And then obviously, after that, you've you've stayed in the sport, you uh ran some marathons yourself, and and then you got into coaching. So, how did the transition from you know athlete to coach kind of come in for you? And and uh and what what was that avenue like?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Well, you know, it was um um um sort of an inevitability of source, I suppose. Um, because even when I was in high school, I really enjoyed it when some of the young guys would come onto the team. And I I I always wanted to have some sort of a team component. Um, I didn't want to be sort of this lone wolf. And I remember it was right when I was about to finish up law school. In fact, I think I had just finished law school. My mother had a colleague, and the young man was just getting into running, and he was demonstrated a lot of aptitude. And so um uh his parents reached out, asked my mom if I would be willing to help uh their son, and I did. And um, he ended up finishing second at the state meet, um, ended up signing with the University of Houston. Um, and uh that was my first coaching job ever. A young guy named Brent Henson from Alba Golden High School up by Miniola. And I um had a wonderful time coaching that young guy. Uh, and then sort of picked up some other guys, uh, started coaching a few other guys in the Austin area when I came down to work at a law firm in Austin. Um, but then it really got rolling when my wife took over as the track coach at Austin St. Michael's Catholic Academy. And then I came on to help with the 800, 1600, 3,200 meter runs in the spring, cross country in the fall. And then um we went on and um um um she was the head coach. We ended up having 54 uh state champions, uh, most of which were her doing. Um I had a few with the distance races, you know, um, and won some, won a bunch of state titles as a team. And my God, we had a lot of fun because, you know, in the United States, the impact of a coach on a young kid, uh whether it's a young man or a young woman, is significant. Yes. The way we structure our sports uh is very different than most other parts of the world, um, both scholastically, um, um for teenagers and then uh collegiately. Um, I mean, there's a you know, you've heard of Oxford, you've heard of Cambridge. Uh, they have some sports teams, rowing, some running, cross-country running. But for the most part, the university experience worldwide is you go and get educated, and if you're gonna participate in sport, you have a club, right? But in the US, it's so different. And so it was the impact that we got to have that made us realize that there was nothing that we ever did from a sporting standpoint, from a performance standpoint, personally, frankly, that was ever as gratifying is when we would see a kid go out and win a state championship, get a personal best, cry tears of joy when they when they accomplished a dream um or a goal that maybe they thought was um not possible a few years before. Um, watching kids get free educations because they could just go turn left fast on a track. It just feels really good, and it's so soul-filling. Um uh uh um cup filling, whatever you want to call it. Um, all the souls and all the cups are full when you see kids um succeeding.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yeah, and I uh I had a conversation last week with Gabby Hintman um well on my podcast, and we were talking about you know, coaching and high school track. And um, I I coach some kids myself here in um from my wife's uh private school, and like it's amazing when you get to see a breakthrough meet and see them like just the confidence radiating off their face, even like your fastest kid to the kid who's you know not nearly as fast, but like maybe passes somebody and gets a personal best along the way, and you're just like, yeah, and then like it's it gives you so much as a person and as a coach because you're seeing them learn how to use their body, and I think that's the most important thing at that age is like they're just trying to figure out how they work, you know, and that gives them so much confidence down the line.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Right. You know, it's a path of discovery. They understand how resilient and how tough they are, they understand process, they understand um, you know, that you're always gonna have glitter and rainbow shooting out of your ears and your nose every day. Some days it's just a little bit of work.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Um, and so the lessons that are learned uh carry forward. And then, you know, most of these kids uh went on and and and never ran a step in college. Some of them did. All of them learn habits and they're all accountants and doctors and teachers and and and and and they're in the tech industry. They're doing things that I can't come comprehend. I got a BA in psychology. Um, that's why I went to law school. My gift is my verbosity. Um, um, um, but it's pretty cool watching kids more talented than you in every single area go and succeed. Um, um, it's just a satisfying experience and translates pretty well to post-collegiate coaching too. Um, you still have hopes, you have people with dreams, you have people that suffer from sort of the finite uh sort of confines of what they think that they have the ability to do. And you tell them, hey man, your uh your talent is a ranch. Um, not not not of infinite acreage, but it's much more acreage than what you have fenced in. So what I tell everybody is let's push the fences all all the way out to the edges of the ranch that is your talent, and that that's where we're gonna roam. Don't hem yourself in. I am not good at 5K's. I am not a good long distance runner. People um um um sort of hem themselves in because they define themselves and they they they sort of lose uh sort of that that that that youthful exuberance that I think a lot of us carried, and then we sort of get destroyed when when adults do gross things like um um confuse reality um in realism for pessimism. And so it's like, hey, let's rekindle some youthful exuberance, let's go chase some goals where there's no penalty for coming up short. The only penalty is not chasing it, right? I mean, you don't pay your taxes, you're gonna have problems. You go out and commit crimes, you're probably gonna uh uh have a problem. What's the crime in chasing a running goal, man? Yeah, just one, chase it.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Yeah. And I think I listened to your podcast, your consistently good podcast today, when you talked about the privilege of getting to choose a coach when you're older. Um, and you know, when you're when you're growing up, sometimes you, you know, you are you are you step into someone's coaching and it's just how is what it is. And there's can be some damage done, and like like you said, you start to pigeonhole yourself of like, oh well, I'm just really not that fast of a 5k guy. Um, I really can't hit those paces. Because it's just that it's that it's what's been told to you at some point in life that you just keep replaying in your head. And then when when you get to an adult, you get you're like, you get to choose, and you you start hearing what other people are telling other people, what adult coaches are telling other people, and you're like, Maybe I would maybe I'll go and and see what this guy has to tell me. And then that's where you come in.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't listen, man. I'm not everybody's cup of tea, but what I tell everybody is there's a coach for everybody, and everybody also deserves to be coached. And you don't have to be a certain speed, you don't have to have a certain level of accomplishment to then deserve to have a coach. Um, you don't need to be penalizing yourselves that way, you know, any more than you know, you don't have to pass a certain IQ test, deserve to have a teacher, like I was talking about on that podcast, right? Um, but you know, um, when I was a little kid, they had these, these, these books, they were called Choose Your Own Adventure Books. And they're at these hideous book fairs. They, you know, you go and you beg your mom for, you know, 15 bucks to go buy an overpriced book down at the book fair, right? In elementary school. Um, um, and so unfortunately, sometimes when you get when you get assigned a coach and uh to some kids' detriment, sometimes maybe the coach isn't perfectly adept, right? Um, at the middle school and even the high school level, um, you don't get to choose your own adventure. Unfortunately, sometimes um um you're you're you know you're you're stuck with what you got, right? Coaching wise. And there's a lot of really good coaches. Most coaches are really male we uh uh uh well-meaning and do a great job, but you know, um post-collegiately, you get to choose your own adventure, you get to pick your coach, you get to um um pick a person who you have good synergy with, right? And then you could just get to work and just sink your nails into it and go and see what you can do, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Yeah, and it it almost makes you feel like you're a kid again because you're like when when someone has that confidence in you and they and they you say, like, hey, you can do this, and we're gonna give you this, you know, we're gonna give you this plan and we're gonna check in, you know, yeah, twice a week, once a week with whatever they need, and you'll see that you know that confidence in that person increases, and you're like, Oh, I I feel like I'm 16 again.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yeah, well, cool. And then um, I was also gonna say one thing that I appreciate about you and and from what I what I see of you is you you check in with your athletes pretty often, it seems, you know, after speed workouts, you're texting them, you're you're calling them if they want to call, and you're always keeping that that I try, I try.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

I'm not perfect. Um I coach a lot of people, but I try to do the best I can to be responsive, um, be accessible, and uh uh be somebody who is a part of the process almost every step of the way.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah, and you know, some coaches can fall into the trap of you know just writing training plans for people. They get tons of athletes and they just write them and and yeah, meet with them maybe once a month.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

And it's like Yeah, it's it's a it's a situation where it's tough because you know, you um um you don't want to say no to people. Um, my my toxic trade is not being able to say no. I say yes. Um, I view life as a fast moving train. Say yes, jump on and figure it out later. Uh for the most part, I do a pretty good job. Um, I love coaching. Um, I try to say yes to as many people as I can because they came and asked me for help because they need it. And I try to be um sympathetic to that and I try to meet people's needs.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah. And I think that's so great because uh, you know, some people like you can just you can anyone can Google a training plan, you know, and like, or chat GPT a training plan and get something up in two seconds. But a coach, you know, that keep the the coaching relationship, the the most important part of it is keeping that line of communication and having someone continuously continuously give them, you know, some feedback and some conversation. Um, what are some of those conversations like? And what do you what do you what joy do you get out of that yourself uh staying in that constant communication?

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah, well, I mean, the conversations are so um um vast and varied, I can't even possibly cover the gamut of conversations. They're from everything from man, I can't believe how far you've come to man, I'm really sorry that your foot hurts. Um uh, hey, you know what? I think you you seem like you've been a little tired lately. Mitch, let's um let's take a down week this week and let's let you um neurologically recharge. Um, I have a lot of conversations with people um trying to help them understand that um every workout's not gonna be great, every race isn't gonna be great. Um, um, you know, most people are pretty good most of the time. And that sort of is in keeping with um something that I say all the time, which is let's be consistently good and not just occasionally great or occasionally good or occasionally adept, right? And what I find is this consistency over time. So my conversations are so um um uh I'm centered around consistency, consistency of emotional effort, consistency of of um uh emotional responses to various stimuli, um, consistency in the way we eat, consistency in the way we recover, just be consistent, sleep well, eat well, dream big. That's what I tell people.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah. And you know, it that the consistency, like you said, it it has to span across all of life. It can't just be in your running. Like, you know, you can run and try to hit your workouts, but like you said, like the nutrition is so important with it in the sleep. And but also talking about like not every workout's going to be great, like the rule of thirds is a real thing. You know, just because you didn't hit it, hit your paces exactly right the week before doesn't make you automatically a bad runner.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

It's no, I mean, you know, I mean Everybody knows that person's above your personality and somebody says, boy, they just don't seem like they're in a great mood today. But the problem is, is we don't expect our running and our racing to mimic lie.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Nobody's in a great mood every day. Nobody uh um is um on their A game every day. Um, some days we just have B days. Sometimes we have C days. Every once in a while we get a we we'll give ourselves an F. Um we uh forgot to email our best friend back about a pressing question. We um forgot to, you know, submit payroll on time. If we're in charge of that, our job and we have to scramble around and get that done, you know, and then we, you know, forgot that we, you know, owed, you know, the you know, the the kennel for that extra day that our dog had to stay because we ran late because our flight was, you know, canceled out of Charlotte last week, right? I mean, some days we just aren't on our A game, we scramble around, we get it done. Hey, so sometimes we gotta scramble around, scramble around, get our runs done too. You know, every workout's not gonna be perfect. Like I told somebody other day, you know, um, um, if you had rainbow shooting out of your butt every day, they call that fantasy. And by definition, that's not reality. No, don't expect fantasy to occur where every workout's gonna be perfect, every race you're gonna feel perfect. Yeah, it's not life.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah. It's not, yeah. Uh reality is imperfect, and that's what's beautiful about it, you know?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

No, no, it's not, but reality can be pretty darn good most of the time. It really can be. And I think it is if people are honest with themselves. It actually is for most people. Yeah. It really is. How many turnal optimists?

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Yeah. That's that's a good way to be. Um, and what I also like about you is you you coach everyone from you know beginner runners all the way up to professional runners. Like, and it seems, it seems like you think, you know, the goal is just as amazing for someone who's chasing, you know, an Olympic trials qualifier, a 215 marathon, as someone who's chasing a sub-4 marathon, or as chases someone chasing a sub-27-minute 5k. Um, what do you see in people uh in chasing those goals? Why do you feel like it, you know, like it's so incredible, no matter the goal?

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Because uh um uh there's more commonality amongst every human being, all eight billion of us on the planet, than there are differences. And that also applies to our dreams and our goals in something as seemingly frivolous as uh, you know, a marathon time or a 10K time. Um people's goals matter to them. People's goals are as significant to them as somebody else's goals, no matter how fast they are, how adept they are, how experienced they are. And so they deserve to be taken seriously. People deserve to have their goals matter to other people too. Listen to what I just said. People deserve on some level to have their goals matter to at least somebody else. It feels good to be cared about. It feels good to be cheered for, clap for, listen to. And so when somebody comes to me and says, it's my pie in the sky goal to qualify for the Boston Marathon, right? Well, I mean, that is could be their glass ceiling from a potential standpoint. So qualifying for that Boston Marathon can elicit the same emotional uh response, the same tears of joy that somebody qualifying for their first, you know, um Olympic trials. Now I can tell you this. There's a lot of people who are so good at running that qualifying for the Olympic trials is literally a honor. It is so ho-hum to the very, very best runners in the United States that qualifying for the Olympic trials is easy. It's not a big deal, it's not even seen as an accomplishment. The same it was for me when I graduated from eighth grade. Why? Because my family, the expectation was that you were gonna go to college. Getting out of eighth grade wasn't a big deal. But what happens if the goal is a big deal to somebody else? Right? I mean, then take their goal seriously, um, invest in them, and when they go and achieve it, go hug them around the neck, man.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Right?

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Yeah, and I think that just goes back to what we were talking about about, you know, having someone reinvest that positive thought into somebody. You know, I we we're always chasing big things, and we're always seeing on social media and in the real world like other people chasing these big goals and putting these big things on online, and you're like, oh yeah, I'm never gonna be that way. You know what I mean? I'm never gonna get those goals. So why should I even try? But it's that it's that positive reinforcement from someone like a coach to say, hey, your your goals matter just as much as that person's goal matters, your goal matters.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Well, yeah, and the victory and trying, and people say, Oh, well, you know, Jeff Cunningham, he's just performance um um um related. All he cares about is is what's your time? All he cares about is winning. I had somebody say that they didn't like me because I care about winning too much, and I do care about winning, but that's not all I care about winning. Listen, there is victory in effort, there's victory in trying, you know. I always tell people the crime isn't trying, the crime is never starting to try. Yeah, gosh darn it. Come on, let's go. Just go try, just go try. Because I can tell you, um, outside of just a few people who are just sort of like the luck lottery winners, right? It's kind of like a guy that has his retirement plan winning the lottery. Well, that's not a plan, right? Almost nothing good ever happened to people who don't try. Yeah, right. When I say good, I mean something on this performance base that's notable. Typically that takes effort. Go try. Go try. There's victory in that. It doesn't feel good not to try. And I had this lecture with one, a young lady who I coached today, a high school kid. And I said, listen, um, not trying doesn't feel good, does it? She said, No, sir. No, sir. All right, well, let's go out there, let's uh uh uh put our put pull our boots up, right? And let's go, let's go give it a good swing and let's finish this high school career off well, because effort feels good. Not trying is one of probably uh probably one of the things that creates the biggest amount of self-loathing in any athlete I've ever coached, whether it's a youth athlete or an adult.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Yeah. And and you know, like you said, that person came came to you and said it said, I don't like you because all you care about is winning. It's like, well, I do all I do uh care about is winning, and let's expand that. Winning sometimes is just going out there and like six, you know, giving it your all. Like thank you. I care about winning, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

There you go. Yeah, you nailed it.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Yeah. And what I also what wanted to talk about for you is is you had said, I think it was, I'm not sure if it was on your podcast or a different podcast, but you were talking about how you kind of tailor training training plans for people. Uh, and what I liked what you said was it's not just about like the times, and you don't just take someone's average time, like you take your their injury history, you take their work schedule, you take your life. So I was wondering what is the intake um, like the intake form, the intake conversation like with you? And what's uh how do you kind of tailor that?

SPEAKER_01 29:14

I schedule a call and I start from the very beginning. I will ask uh, you know, uh people, what is your injury history? What's your athletic background? When did you start running? How many races have you run? How much volume do you run? How many hard workouts a week do you run? What are your uh your your bugaboost? What are your hiccups? What are your emotional hurdles when it relates to um uh um competitive performance? Um, what are your comorbidities? Do you are you a type one diabetic? Do you have rheumatoid arthritis? Um, do you suffer from a prior history of eating disorder that we need to talk about? Extended periods of amenorrhea. Um, do you have any bone density issues that could lead to uh bone stress injuries where I need to be thinking like, okay, do we need to get on the elliptical? Do we need to uh get in the pool and supplement some aerobic um um stimulus uh uh without smashing your foot into the road? I mean, these, it's just a holistic analysis. Um, are you a mother of three, or do you do you not even have a goldfish that you have to keep alive? Big difference, right? I mean, uh you can have one 34-year-old who has three kids, you have one 34-year-old who doesn't. Oh, that's a different day. Sun up to sundown. That's a different day, man. So you got to coach people where they're at and then figure out where they want to go, and then collaboratively get the blueprint and then just go to work. That's what you have to do. But also, uh, you don't need to be gassing people up, you don't need to be feeding them a bunch of uh, you know, a bunch of malarkey and tell them, oh, yeah, you know, you can go to XYZ. Well, you know, I'm also evidence-based. So what like I said is I do know where those fences are, and I figure out how big that ranch is, that talent ranch, and that's where we're gonna roam. But what I try not to do is is uh um um exit it, exit an evidence-based approach and then start feeding people a line of baloney, and then the workouts and then the uh uh the racing don't match um because then you destroy trust. So you get very audacious. I get very, very audacious, but I I I chills try to stay within the bounds of reason and I say this is where your glass ceiling is. Most of the time, the glass ceiling is much higher than what people believe, though. Okay, so that's the good news. Well, let's go out there, you've got a garden, let's water it because it's never gonna bloom if we don't water it, man.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

No, and that goes back to the you know, you're living in the realism, and you're you know, you're an optimist. And because because reality is, you know, it can be optimistic, it can be really great, and some people can get into this mindset of like, yeah, in reality, I'm just not gonna be there. It's like, no, you can be there, you know.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Yeah, and like, you know, and my my wife has hit on this a lot, and uh um Anjali is uh best best coach I've ever known, and you know, and and she just she talks a lot about self-talk, and uh, she's just adamant. And um, you know, and she's gonna be giving a lot of talks, seminars, camps. Um, she's podcasted about this, which is you would never let somebody else talk to you the way you talk to yourself right now. So stop.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

If you won't let them talk to you that way, if they won't let if you won't let them talk about you that way, then why are you doing it? We don't need negative self-talk. But I tell you what, I don't need to remind anybody, we got enough negativity going on in the world right now. We don't need more of that. That is for freaking sure, man.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Yeah. Yeah, and like the other day, this uh I was going on on a speed workout, and um I was like in the warm-up, you know, 10-minute warm-up or whatever, kind of easing into it. And uh in my head, I was like, Oh, like I can't hit these paces, like, what am I doing? And I just started to spiral into this negativity, and there was a quick second, and I was like, What am I doing? I hate that. I was like, I'm maybe I'm capable, maybe I'm not, but like it isn't it fun to be curious and see, and so I I just went out and like hit it, and I don't think I hit all the paces the way that it was, but like after every pace, I was like, see, you did a really good job. Let's try again in the next two minutes, you know, and finished it. I was like, I was really proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

You know, sometimes we owe it to ourselves to gas ourselves up, man. Yeah, um, listen, man, you some days it won't work. Some day, some days you are just gonna suck. Yeah, you're just gonna, you're just gonna be, you know, worse than the most rotten potato at the bottom of the barrel. Some days are like that. But uh um for the last um um um few billion years, um um the sun has come up. The sun has come up in every corner of the earth at about the same time of day for the last few billion years. Tomorrow will come and it'll be a good day.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And uh it goes back to I was uh listened to it, listening to a podcast that wasn't related to running, and it's uh a guy had said he was like, you know, the world could end tomorrow. It certainly could, you know, and and and things could be raining down upon you. And at that point, you have more problems to worry about than chasing your goals, but it's highly likely that's not going to happen. So keep reaching for the stars.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

It's probably one of the best bets that you can make that the sun will come up tomorrow. Yeah, that is that is the safest bet anybody could make. Um, every every guy would leave Vegas rich if that was if we were if we were betting on those odds, we'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Exactly. Well, cool. And so going into Boston this weekend, coming back to Boston. So um, what are some uh some things that you're excited about overall just coming in and seeing the weekend? Your per your personal runners that you coach, but also just the weekend in general.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Yeah, listen, man. You know, um every person who I coach uh who's running Boston is by definition a way above average runner. That's how you get into the Boston Marathon, right? Um, it is a it's a it's a unique privilege uh to have these three young women who I'm coaching who are running in the professional field. All three of them, this is their first pro field at Boston. Um one of them is uh a Canadian school teacher, and then two of them actually are identical twins, the fastest come identical twins in the United States. So um Monica Hebner and and and Isabel, her sister, right? And um, you know, um I would I would I I I think that we're fit. I I I know that we're fit, I know that we're ready. Um and we're gonna go and we're gonna give it a swing. And I'll tell you what, that is a that's a surreal experience. And you know, I've been several years in a row. You're sitting in the in the elite athlete tech meeting um um at the Fairmont Hotel on Sunday afternoon, and you're in there with Ed Eystone and Connor Mance and Sharon Locatie and and and and Career, you know, and and Sarah Hall, and you could just go on and on and on. All the great um um um agents are in there, you know. You got Ray Flynn lurking in the back, you got Kevin Hansen who coaches Brooks Hansons, you know, and so you so you're in there and you start realizing um this is this is a little bit different, man. Um, but what a um what a what a what an amazing scene. Um it it makes you get incredibly emotional. You show up the morning of the race, and the staff, the staff of the hotel line up along the hall and roar as the pros go out through a line where the hotel staff just lines the halls and they get on a bus and go up to Hopkinton and run the greatest race on the planet. And then following them is another 22,000 people who are all above average runners, who have hopes, who have dreams, they're running for an aunt or an uncle who may have had cancer. Um, they're they're they're out there uh um just pouring their heart and soul. They might have flown in from Melbourne, Australia, or there, or or or Moscow, right, to go and run this race. Um it's uh it's a melting pot of humanity. You've got Sikhs and Muslims and and Buddhists and atheists and Christians, and it's it's 40.2k for all of them. Yep, it's 26.2 miles for all of them. We're all brothers and sisters, we're all at one. Um, tall, short, brown, white, doesn't matter. And everybody is running. And I tell you what, the cheers are loud when you go past Wellesley College, and they do not care who you are, they do not care where you're from, they do not care what language you speak, because we're roaring for humans. Yeah, and what a time. Yeah, and what a time.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

It and it's amazing, you know, every single one of those runners like has an incredible story of some sort. And it that I think that's what's so beautiful about running is that like you're on the exact same course as Connor Mance, as well, not you know, Clayton Young, everyone who who's out there, and you're just as cool as they are, and you're running for something either just as big or even bigger, you know. If if you're running for someone who like leave who left a big legacy, you know, you're like my mom, you know, she she passed away of cancer back in January. And um, she's really sorry to hear that. Yeah, she was a two-time Boston marathon qualifier. And so, like, my whole dream is to chase to chase that. And I meet someone, you know, people like that all the time on Star Lines. Yeah, and I'm like, that's what's beautiful about this sport is that like yeah, everyone's stories are incredible.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, um, I have a young lady racing on Monday who has a world record for the fastest marathon ever run by a uh by a by a lady with multiple sclerosis. She did it at the Chicago Marathon, and I greeted her 40 meters past the finish line. And we're we're gonna go run us another one on Monday in Boston, you know. And I've coached, you know, uh runners who have bilateral hip prosthetics. Um, I've coached, you know, type one diabetics, right? Who freaking went and won the Argentinian championship in the marathon. And she was she was a type one diabetic. I mean, you've got these stories, you know, you've got these stories. And um it's it's pretty cool because you've got so much diversity with everybody uh conforming to the uh um to the identical um nature of the race, which is it's 26.2 miles, but the diversity of experience and the diversity uh uh uh uh of goals and the diversity uh uh of their of their stories that they're writing is um just a tapestry of amazingness, if that's a word.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Yeah, yeah, so cool. I'm I'm excited. I Boston Marathon always makes me so excited to kind of get it.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

I mean, you got 250,000 people out cheering for a marathon, the whole city shuts down, right? I mean, what major city united states essentially shuts down for a marathon? Well, I mean, it's um yeah, yeah, the whole city, they just throw, they just throw everything into it.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

It's awesome. And then also going back to to you for your coaching, um, one thing that uh I've I've fit found out about you is that you love to stay at abreast of the sport. You like you're in tune with the nutritional changes, you're in tune with what workouts other coaches are doing, you're you're always in tune with things that are changing. Um what uh as far as like the research and and and you know nerdy aspect of the sport do you like most? What what kind of what is that like why is that so interesting to you?

SPEAKER_01 41:00

Well, it's really interesting to me because I am a performance-based coach. And what I really, really like is um understanding the science, understanding the why. Um I have a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. Um, I I I'm not a hard scientist. In other words, I did not spend a lot of time in chemistry, advanced biology. Um, um, you know, I don't um have a degree in exercise physiology. I'm a lawyer, right? But it's pretty cool because there's so many vast resources. And I have friends who have trained at the you know, U.S. Olympic Training Center. I have PhDs who I consult who understand uh what the Krebs cycle is, who understand what mitochondrial respiration is, and density is, and you know, the different kinds of muscle fibers we have. And how do we recruit those? And what paces do you run scientifically to get that done? Let me tell you, the best educational experience I ever had was sitting next to Dr. Joe V. Hill at the United States track and field championships in 2010 for two and a half or three hours, and just let Dr. V. Hill talk. And I just sat there and um with my big mental notepad, and I just tried to memorize everything that Dr. V. Hill said. Um, he was um he was a great one, and we lost a giant last year when he passed away along with uh uh Dr. Jack Daniels, right? And then Jeff Galloway just passed away. You have to understand, Jeff Galloway was my first coach, and he didn't know it. My dad ordered Galloway's book on running out of the back of Runner's World magazine, which is what you had to do in 1984, 85. Okay. Barnes Noble didn't even exist as a company that I know of. Okay. Um, so it came in the mail and he said, I'm gonna figure out how to help my son. And so Jeff Galloway was my first coach. And uh just learning from guys like D. Hill and Daniels and Galloway, um, and I still use their stuff today. I I I use it today, right? Um, so that's what I love. I love learning from people who are way smarter than me. And that would be most people, I would like to add, but I love learning from people who are smarter than me. Yeah, right. If I'm honest with you, I don't know that I have an original idea when it comes to the science of training. Yeah, right? Uh V Hill did that for me, right? Lydier did that for me. Uh Dr. Bannister did that for us, right? They taught us, right? Now it's up to us to cobble it together. It's up to us to figure out how to manipulate it and make it work. You know, it might be different when it's 45 degrees and 20% humidity and then 75 degrees and 95% humidity. You gotta know how to um make some art out of the science, right? But my gosh, man, um, most of this stuff has been uh um figured out to some degree by people way smarter than me who studied. Came before me, it's up to me to just read, and it's up to me to just listen. Right?

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Yeah. And sometimes reread and re-listen because sometimes you can get reread and re-listen, right?

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Yeah. I couldn't remember whether it was an estrogen patch or a progesterone patch and which one maintains bone density in women. And I had to go, okay, now let me re-refresh my memory on this one. Because if I'm dealing with somebody who has bone density issues, you don't want to give them a bad. I had to go back and reread it. I couldn't remember, right? Um, but yeah, man, learning stuff like that. Yeah. Um, the introduction of exogenous hormones is an example of the changing science. Uh, when I was, you know, in college, everybody thought, well, you just take a birth control pill, you're fine. Well, we now know that that's not true. We know that that's not true. We're trying to preserve or restore bone health in a young lady who may need that, right? Um, um, so um staying abreast of the emerging science is absolutely vital um for us as coaches not to screw it up for the people who rely so heavily on us to get it right.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that I um never really thought of or knew knew much of uh was like the the idea of iron and how important iron is in the body. Right. And like I listened to an episode of you talking about that, and I was like, huh, iron. Okay. And then I did some more research myself, and I was like, a lot of people, especially women, can become low in iron. And that's that's research that very new.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Yeah, I had a uh a lady, um, a middle-aged lady or early middle-aged lady, um, um discovered that her ferritin was at an 11, 17, 17, 20 days before the Rotterdam Marathon, which was two days ago, two days prior to this recording. And um, she flew from Amsterdam to London, went and got an iron infusion. Uh, we felt a little bit cruddy for about a week. Um, then her body sort of um um got past her initial uh sort of immune response to the introduction of a heavy dose of iron, um, feeling better. And on a pretty tough raider or uh day in Rotterdam, she goes out at the age of 49 and runs 317 in the marathon. There you go. Three-minute PR. And we did that because we invested in the science of, you know, oh my God, your your your iron is in the toilet. Um, some um perhaps ill-informed doctor told her, Oh no, it's fine. And I'm like, like hell it is. We were able to hop a hop a freight to London and go and get it done. And we went and got a three-minute PR when frankly uh the weather was far worse than when she ran her personal best of 320 um a few months ago. Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_02 46:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Those kinds of things, man. It feels good to get it right.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Yeah. Right. And dang, because now I, you know, I said earlier, like it's so important as as high school kids to learn like how your body works. It's so important as a 40 plus year old to learn how your body works because it I mean, like, like once you know those kinds of things, the confidence yeah, builds again. And you're like, oh, like I can know what's wrong because I have all of this evidence of research behind me that I can tap into.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Yeah, but she told me that she was just she was just tired all the time. Yeah, and the doctor shrugged her shoulder and chops it up to age. It's like, uh, I don't know, right? And it's so validating. It's so validating when people say, I feel like crap. And then we can go and we can go right there. Yeah, that's why you feel like crap. Now, sometimes it might be just because you're overrunning your easy runs, yeah, right? Sometimes it might be because you're just eating Cheetos for dinner. Sometimes it might be because you sleep four hours a night and that's all you've done for four months straight, right? I mean, there's some there's some pretty unsexy things that we could tell people they need to do to start feeling better, but sometimes, you know, you go get yourself a blood test, you can discover some amazing things. So it's not just about the miles run and the and the and the lapse completed for me. It's the whole thing. We got to look at it. We got to look at your emotional health, we have to look at your sleep cycles, we have to look at your diet, we have to look at your your your your habits. Are you drinking too much alcohol? You know, um, um Are you drinking too much water? You know, eating enough iron? What what is the composition of your calories? Yeah, you know, before we ever get to, well, how fast are you running your uh your meters or your miles? Or how many 400 meter repeats are you doing, right? That's the obvious stuff that people want to lean to. I just need a different coach because these workouts are bad. Well, maybe the workouts aren't that bad. Yeah, maybe there's a lot of other stuff that uh doesn't have a lot of sex of feel because you can't load up how many um um how many steaks you ate, right? And how many iron supplements you swallowed um on Strava. You can't load that up. No, nobody wants to see that. Oh my god, Strava, look at the milligrams of vitamin C she had last week. I mean, it's not sexy. Nobody wants to look at that. They want to look at your Strava segment. Those Strava segments, they might get faster if you go swallow some iron.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing how interconnected it all is.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

Like in I always chuckle when people say, Well, it's just mental. Whoa. Last time I checked, the brain is a physical organ in your body. And last time I check, the brain affects physical function. And this is the analogy I always use. You're laying in bed at three o'clock in the morning, heart rate at 48. Axe murderer kicks the door in, that heart rate will be at 200 beats a minute within two to three seconds. That is a physiologic response, that is a physical manifestation of emotional distress. So it's not just, oh, well, it's just mental. Well, it's physical too. You're gonna get a shot of adrenaline, you're gonna become superhuman in strength for a few seconds up to a couple of minutes, and then you're gonna have a massive crash and massive exhaustion because it was pure adrenaline, right? And all of that is a physical response to an emotional stimulus. So don't tell me, well, it's just mental. They're interconnected completely, completely inextricably, and you cannot detach them. They are intertwined for forever. Yes, they're intertwined.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

Yeah, right. It's not, it's like it's like it's not just mental, like your stomach is telling your mind that it's empty. Your mind is telling you that you're hungry. Don't go run, don't go run 12 miles when you're hungry, you know.

unknown 50:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Yeah, that's right. That's right. There you go. There you go. Yeah, and that's why we know now that running can actually reshape uh behavior. Running can um be um therapeutic and help uh with people who suffer from past trauma. We now know that post-traumatic stress disorder um um is really um um helped from a treatment standpoint by running, by having a parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous response to self-induced, self-controlled stress rather than stress that's visited upon us, it's out of control, whether it's domestic abuse, whether it's uh a wartime stress from having missiles go over your head, shells falling on you. People get post-traumatic stress disorder. We're familiar with that because that diagnosis um came about in the early 1900s from veterans coming back from the World Wars, right? Well, we now know that if you can self-inflict discomfort and pain and stress through running, and you can internalize that you are in control of it. We've actually found that you can redo the hardware and redo and sort of rewire your both your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system to have productive responses to stress.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Yeah, that's an example of the brain and the body being completely connected. Yeah, fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

And you know, and the argument made to some coaches who think, you know, oh, like you're fine, just work harder. Like, you know, it's like, well, again, it is a little mental, like that that person may be dealing with some stuff mentally, like and emotionally, and they may need to talk about it and get it off their chest. So, like, you know, there are some people who are just like, you know, you're fine, like that doesn't matter. Go run, go do your stuff. Why can't you do your stuff?

SPEAKER_01 52:21

You know, that's very dangerous, and sometimes that is the correct response. Sometimes it is. Yeah, but you've got to be really, really careful and you got to have some experience to really be able to analyze the situation such that that in some contexts is the proper response. Many times it's dismissive, many times it's flippant, many times it is disrespectful. And the problem is, is as a coach, if you do that too much, you lose the respect of your athletes, you lose the trust, perhaps more importantly, the athletes. And at that point, you can just emphasize the word lose because you've you're pretty much you've pretty much lost as a coach at that point. So you just got to be careful not doing that to your athletes. Um, validate feelings, validate feelings of uh of anxiety and stress, and then trying to figure out strategies individually for helping that particular athlete work through those in a productive way.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

Yeah.

unknown 53:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

It's hard though. It is hard. Coaching is not easy, just like running isn't easy.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

No, no, and you know, there's a lot of people I think who go and run one marathon and then try to hang their shingle out as a coach, um, because I believe that they think that it's passive income and that it's going to be an easy, almost passive source of income. And um, I regret to tell them that that's actually uh quite the opposite, um, in that it's um it's both it's labor intensive. Um, it takes a lot of thought and empathy and planning and um an emotional energy. It really does.

SPEAKER_00 53:51

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's that that's one thing that I've learned as a track coach, where it's like, you know, you go into the season, because last year was my first year, and I, you know, I go into the season with all of these plans, and I hear what they what they run, and I'm like, all right, like they can they can do these workouts, they can do these day on these days, and like two weeks in, you're like, oh, this kid is looking like he's burned out, you know, and then like you go talk to him, and he's like, Oh, yeah, like I'm also trying to juggle tennis season, and then you're like, oh, well, that's a whole different thing. Like, we gotta we gotta work with the tennis season, like right.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

Uh college level uh uh mathematics um on Wednesdays down at Tyler Junior College, and then suddenly you're like, oh my god, this kid is a bucket of freaking stress. This dude, literally, his blood is it, I mean, his blood is made of cortisol. This dude, like rocky road blood, and all the rocks are just big chunks of cortisol. Yeah. So, yeah, man, these kids are so driven or so type A, especially for teaching uh coaching and teaching at a at a private school. Boy, I tell you what, man, you know, um, these kids are brilliant, they're our future leaders, but golly, some of the stress some of these young kids are under is uh um sometimes a bit dismaying to me. Because I'll be honest with you, I mean, AP tests were barely a thing. When I was in high school, I didn't know anybody that took AP tests really. Um now it's like, oh my God, if I don't get a three on the AP test, my life is over. And I'm like, why? Yeah, take Spanish one, it'll be easy. Go get your A. But uh, no, it's tough. They're under a lot of stress, and um, um, there's a lot of sort of arbitrary markers of success academically, um, socially, that are in place that um make being a teenager, I believe, more difficult now than ever, if I'm being honest with you.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Yeah, yeah. Uh I I feel for a lot of the teenagers these days, like they're always, you know, they have social media right at their fingertips, and that can be so dangerous. And it's like sometimes you just want to help them and like turn it off.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

Right, yeah, man. I tell you what, um, there's a there's a whole cottage industry uh uh um in um treating um mental health disorders and you know DSM 5 diagnoses that emanate from um the ravages of social media. It's um it's an interesting time to be alive for sure.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

Yeah. Well, Jeff, uh thank you so much for for coming on and for talking with me. This has been so fun. But before I let you go, I like to ask a few rapid fires at the end of each uh at each uh episode. So if you don't mind, I got some. All right. So first, living in Austin, other than Town Lake, what are your three favorite routes to have your athletes run and surround yourself?

SPEAKER_01 56:41

Yeah. Um uh Great Northern is a three and a half mile loop um that comes down Shoal Creek and then cuts over to Great Northern Boulevard, which which which parallels uh uh uh Mopak Expressway. It is um um a mostly flat loop uh where we're able to have access to fluids and it's really, really great. Um, for hill work. Um my runners love to go and run up to Mount Benell. Um it is just a hilly mess, tough of a run, but um it hardens the soul um and they love it. And then um I have this cool little two-mile workout loop that we use over in East Austin, um, um over off of you know at Tillery. And then I love to duck into the tackerilla uh that's right there at the corner. Uh, she's been there for 40 years, and she loves seeing us come in the front door. And um, I wore I get tacos and coffee a lot of times after practice. She's like, hey, Mijo, how was practice today? I'm like, Oh, let me tell you, it was a rough one. So, yeah, we have a lot of fun over there.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

That's awesome. My wife lived in East Austin for a while, so I'll have to ask her about that tacadia because she's sure she knows about it.

SPEAKER_01 57:44

Yeah, it's a lions and Tillery.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

Lions and okay, awesome. Yeah, and then um, going back to your high school days, what is your most memorable track race that you ever had?

SPEAKER_01 57:57

Most memorable track race I ever had, if I'm honest with you, um was the regional championships, uh, region two regional championships in Waco in uh 1991. And it was the first time I ever qualified for the state meet. I finished second place in the 3,200 meter run. Um, um Damon Curtis from Jersey Village High School down by Houston won the race, and I was second, and I qualified for my first state meet ever. I was a sophomore in high school um spring of 19 uh 90, uh um at the Region 2 Championships in Waco, spring of 91. I apologize.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

Yeah, awesome.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

That sounds fun. Yeah, it was it was a it was a heck of an experience because for me that was that you know, um where you feel like you've arrived, because they only took eight eight kids to the state meeting, every event in the state of Texas. So it was it was it was very tough.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And then um, if you could give anyone, someone a reason to go for a run today, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 59:05

The mental benefits and the physical benefits are so innumerable, innumerable. We recognize that they are so much more bountiful and plentiful uh than we ever thought. Because if you go for a run today, then it's gonna end up be getting a run tomorrow, more runs next week, and more runs next month. Just start.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

Just start. Awesome. And then my last question is I always like to ask uh my guests, especially in in Texas, this question if there was a Texas runner that you could recommend me reach out to you right now, who would it be?

SPEAKER_01 59:43

And when you say a Texas runner to reach out to, for what? For the podcast Mitch Ammons. Mitch Ammons? Mitch Ammons. There's a guy who uh uh has had the the headwinds in the hills of life and fought through them. And uh his path to qualifying for two Olympic trials in a row. Um and uh um just ran a 214 um in December at the U.S. Marathon Championships. Uh what a story, what a journey. Um, um, a friend to all and one of the toughest sons of guns I've ever, ever had the opportunity to coach.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

Yeah, Mitch, I I've been following him for a while. He's he's incredible and seems like a very genuine guy. Um, so I would I would love to have a conversation with him. So, Mitch, I'm reaching out to you soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:39

So and I hate that that you made me pick one because boy, I tell you what, I've got some stories and I've got some I've got some characters out there and just some really, really tough souls who are so genuine and so kind and so hardworking and do it under, you know, sort of the uh uh sort of in the haze of anonymity um for the most part, you know, um, guys like Michael Morris, uh we call him Slim here in town, just ran 215, you know, after chasing trying to qualify for the Olympic trials for the last seven, eight years of his life and finally did it. And uh those were some good ice cold beers after that race in New York a couple weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. Actually, one more question. What is your favorite celebratory beer after a great race?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

Cold one.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

Yeah. Any any cold ones?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

See, listen, I I I'm indiscriminate, man. I um um I'm a I'm a cheap day, I promise.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:36

Awesome. Well, coach, thank you so much. Um, I am so excited to see how your athletes do in Boston. Um, I'm so excited to keep following you. And um, this has been such a gift. So thank you for for being so generous with your time.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

Well, um, it's always a pleasure and it's always flattering to me that anybody wants to hear anything that I have to say. Because, like I always tell people, I'm just a guy from Tyler, Texas with a bad accent and a pickup truck.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:02

Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

Over an hour.