25-Year-Old Juliette Vielhauer Runs 3:01:57 Debut Marathon and Eyes Sub-1:25 Half

DFW Running Talk: Juliette Vielhauer
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Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel and today's special guest is Juliet. Juliet, how are you?

Juliette Vielhauer: Hey Chris. I'm good. Thanks for having me out. I'm really excited.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I'm excited too. And it's funny, the first time I met you obviously it was with Josh whenever, but you guys were at some 5K and yeah, you're at a 5K.

I saw that you won it and I was like, who's this woman? And then over the last several months I would say the year maybe you've really started to accomplish a lot of different things. And today we'll talk a little bit about your journey, why you got into running and all that kind of stuff.

How about that? Sounds good. All. So before I kick it off I am gonna say that Juliet is 25 years old and she just ran her very first marathon at CIM at a 3 0 1 52 or something like that. 3 0 7. Just under three.

Juliette Vielhauer: Oh,

Chris Detzel: alright. 3 0 1 57. Pretty remarkable. And so when I saw that, I was like, I gotta [00:02:00] get her on the podcast.

And so appreciate you coming on. Let's start talking a little bit about you. Where did your journey start? What'd you do in high school, college? I don't know. Let's start there. And

Juliette Vielhauer: yeah I played lacrosse. I actually, I did do cross country. I think I started when I was in first grade, my elementary school grade, the team that you couldn't start until you were in second grade, but I begged the coach let me play or let me, let me run.

I'll just run against the. Second graders and the competitions, and they let me run. And so I ran from second grade to eighth grade and I actually won our county finals for cross country for women, which was awesome. But I, I started playing lacrosse when I was nine. And when I went to college or went to high school and I decided I'll just focus on that, played varsity lacrosse all four years in high school.

And then during my bachelor's, I went to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. I played club lacrosse there. Which is one of the best clubs on the West coast, if not in the country. It's an amazing [00:03:00] lacrosse club program. And then I did my masters at SMU, which is what brought me to Dallas and played another season there.

Chris Detzel: There's a lot of running in lacrosse yes,

Juliette Vielhauer: I was midfield, I was usually one of the fittest running wise on the team. We had all sorts of running tests that we did as a team, endurance. And I was always the first or second one done.

Chris Detzel: Always taking everybody's ass in the running.

Juliette Vielhauer: I love that part. I loved running and running circles around everybody on the field.

Chris Detzel: How'd you guys do in lacrosse? When you did the club stuff?

Juliette Vielhauer: It was fun. It was pretty low intensity. It is one practice a week. Okay. Once I got to, to college and games every other weekend it was pretty casual.

High school. I played for my high school and then I played club outside of high school season. So I was playing year round.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Juliette Vielhauer: Pretty much from when I was in middle school through high school. I was playing year round lacrosse. I was traveling, I lived in California. I was traveling to the East coast [00:04:00] to play.

I was playing all over the country. It was really fun. I loved it. I missed what must have been really good in high school. Yes, I played I actually, I've been playing with a adult women's league in Dallas, which has been really fun.

Chris Detzel: Wow. I didn't even

Juliette Vielhauer: know they had lacrosse. Here in Dallas, there's an adult league.

It's really fun. In the summer, there's all these girls that come home for the summer that are playing D one. So playing against some really fantastic players. I'm very out of it. I haven't, played competitively in a while, but it's really fun to play alongside them.

Chris Detzel: I'll say easy, but you pick it up at least.

Yeah. What to do and give yourself a little bit of time and you'll be right back in it, yeah. I assume so it comes back. Yeah. So when you came down smu, obviously the cross was, there's not a lot of cross here, so what'd you do? Like when you

Juliette Vielhauer: I didn't do much like when I moved, to Dallas I to do this program. I didn't know anybody in the whole state of Texas when I moved. I had accepted that I was gonna start this [00:05:00] program before I had ever been to Dallas. Oh, wow. And so I, I moved here. I didn't know anybody. I made some friends in my program who are still close friends today.

But the program was, it was nine months. It was very difficult. It was a hard night once, and so I was not. Really working out at all. The team was way more casual than Cal Poly. And it was just one season. It was a very short season one practice. I think maybe we played five or six games, but I was pretty out of shape after I graduated from my master's,

Chris Detzel: I'm sure.

Juliette Vielhauer: Yeah. That was in 2022 that I graduated. And then I didn't really start running until beginning of 2023.

Chris Detzel: Okay. And then what'd you start running and what will get you into it? Have you ever done like before that, like a 5K or something before or

Juliette Vielhauer: Never. Never.

Chris Detzel: Okay. Never. So

Juliette Vielhauer: I signed up for a half

Chris Detzel: in

Juliette Vielhauer: May of

Chris Detzel: 2023 just to sign up.

Like you never did anything before? No. Why'd you do that? What was

Juliette Vielhauer: I was at this point [00:06:00] where I was I was. I'm very competitive and I missed that that I had from lacrosse and from, playing team sports. I'd been working for a while and like my first, full-time corporate job.

I was fully remote, so I wasn't meeting a lot of people. I didn't really have a lot going on. I really just needed something to do. So that started awesome. Started casually running signed up for this half. It was around the time of my birthday, so I was like, this will be a good birthday, present to myself.

Get myself a little bit, back in shape and kind of take care of myself a little bit more. I've been working really hard. Outside of work, just hanging out with friends and drinking and doing stupid stuff. So let's have a, let's have a better goal in minds.

Chris Detzel: That makes sense. And did you train for this half or what'd you do as you went into it?

Was your mind stuck?

Juliette Vielhauer: I was running like three to seven miles at a time. I think I did one long run where I got to 10 miles. But my goal really was just to finish the race. I think [00:07:00] I had my eye on around a two hour goal. I ran a 2 0 7 and Okay. It was. It was hard. It was horrible. But I still, I got home and I ended up signing up for a trail race later that year.

I was like, let's do something harder, something different. And they harder, they call it a marathon. So a trail marathon, but the course itself is only 23 or 24 miles. So in my mind, that's why, CIM really was my marathon debut. The trail race was a. It was 26 people that finished this race.

It was very small, not in the same league, after the half I just wanted to keep going. Yeah. Have another pool, have something new to chase down after that.

Chris Detzel: Trail races are tough sometimes. Depending on the terrain. Where was your trail race at?

Juliette Vielhauer: It was in Calistoga, outside of Napa.

Okay. It was 4,600 feet elevation gain over it. It was brutal. Were

Chris Detzel: you ready for it? I'm sure you, you never ran anything like that before, right? No,

Juliette Vielhauer: and I really didn't. I [00:08:00] trained kinda the same way I did for the half, three to seven miles at a time. I was running 10 to 25 miles a week.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Juliette Vielhauer: I don't know if you can call that training at all.

I was running

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Juliette Vielhauer: we could call that I was running, leading up to,

Chris Detzel: To you. To you? It was a

Juliette Vielhauer: lot. I'm

Chris Detzel: sure, at that time it was like,

Juliette Vielhauer: at the time I was like, I don't know if I could ever run any more miles than 25 miles a week. It felt like a lot.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. When you first get into running, especially these longer distance, whether it's half marathon or especially marathon, you don't know what to do.

Like a hundred percent of the people that get on this podcast and start their journeys, they have no idea. They just, sometimes they'll pick up a training plan and. Look on the internet and just try some of that. Or maybe they're say, oh, maybe I just sign up for a marathon. And see what happens, but I guess,

Juliette Vielhauer: As long as you start somewhere, the fact that you started. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. And I think to me the lesson is that you just learn as you go. Nothing's perfect, but we'll talk about your marathon in a little bit. Your first kind of marathon that you raced and got serious about.[00:09:00]

Really,

Yeah. And how serious you, your training was. I know that you were doing some miles there but before we do, let's talk about some of the fundraises you did and won, yeah. Let's do that,

Juliette Vielhauer: yeah. And it's been a, it's been a good year. So that 20, 23 year, I did those two races.

And fell apart. Like I, I felt horrible after the half. I felt horrible after the trail race, and most people

Chris Detzel: do.

Juliette Vielhauer: I was thinking, I'm never gonna do a marathon. After I did that trail race, my mindset was, I am never doing a marathon training, which I didn't really even do was hard.

And I felt horrible. I wasn't looking back, I know I wasn't fueling, I wasn't doing any strength training. I wasn't taking care of myself. Yeah. To be able to reach any sort of goals. But in 2024, I. I had, I'll start with Christmas 2023. My mom got me a pair of vapor flies.

Nice.

And so very nice. And so 2024 I started by, I essentially did every single one of my [00:10:00] runs in these shoes. 'cause I had pretty much only been running slow miles. Yeah. And now I'm like, okay, let's do these. Fast miles that start doing some faster. They weren't workouts. I was pretty much just doing every mile I was running fast.

Fast was the only speed that I had. And so I started wanting to do more halves because I felt like that was fun. I made a sub one 40 goal for myself. And so that's when I started. Okay. Maybe let's, start training and maybe try and do some things right. But I ended up running a 1 42 in April, 2024.

And then I Were you mad about

Chris Detzel: that?

Juliette Vielhauer: I had taken 25 minutes off my half, yeah. From a year before, so I was still pretty happy with that. But I still was. Training the same 10 to 25 miles a week. But I had asked, choose that was it. That was really the only difference. I ran another half in November and I ran another 1 42.

So thinking about that being, just over a year ago is. Insane. That it's not that long [00:11:00] ago,

Chris Detzel: to be honest, how much progress

Juliette Vielhauer: I've made since then. But after that I was like, okay, something's gotta change. So I made a plan to start running like some more 30 plus mile weeks.

I actually did some research and figured out what a track workout was, what a threshold workout was, how to structure. A week to continue to get more fit and to get faster. Interesting. And so December of 20

Chris Detzel: very focused. When you put your mind to something it sounds like you're like, okay, I gotta, I'm trying to hit it under one 40 and I can't do it twice in a row.

There's something wrong.

Juliette Vielhauer: Yeah. I'm like, at this point, I, that was another, from April to November I made zero progress essentially, and I was like that's not me. Sometimes that's

Chris Detzel: running. But yeah,

Juliette Vielhauer: I was like, I popped my mind to something though. I usually can at least make a little bit of progress, but I made no progress.

Zero. I was frustrated. I was like, back to the drawing board, let's. Actually try and do something, right? So end of December, started formulating this plan, signed up for a bunch of races in the beginning of 2025. I was like, maybe if I just race more

Chris Detzel: like five Ks [00:12:00] and stuff. Is that what

Juliette Vielhauer: you're talking about?

Or five Ks? 10 Ks halfs.

Chris Detzel: Okay, so you didn't have to Okay.

Juliette Vielhauer: Signed up for everything. And so Christmas 2024, my mom got me a pair of alpha flies. Again I have the best one ever. And so started with a new pair of carbon shoes for 2025, and that's what you were saying when I started to do a lot better.

I think that I think that we met at Form fall as Fitness 5K. Yeah,

that's right.

But I raced, in January I raced the hot cake hustle. It's up here in Plano at Oak Point, solely because Josh has these, he's won age group awards at that race a handful of times. They're these little miniature syrups, which it talks to me in December or January this last year.

That is all I could talk about. I wanted one of those syrups.

Chris Detzel: Oh, wow. I was

Juliette Vielhauer: all training for, I wanted one of these little syrup things. I thought it was cute. I thought it was a cute award to get. And I wanted one. I love it. So I ran the hot cake hustle. 10 K. I ran a 41 minute, [00:13:00] 10 K. They had postponed it.

Wow. Due to snow. So it was a pretty small race and I won first place female, thankfully, because they were only doing the baby syrups for overall. So I was, wow. I was very happy. I got my syrup, I got a huge pr and I was like, okay, this is a very good start to the year, two weeks later, I ran the two cold.

Chris Detzel: Wait just a sec. Did you know that the 41 minutes was like. Super fast for 10 K or did you have any idea how fast that was?

Juliette Vielhauer: I didn't. I didn't. I think that my PR then before then was like 46, maybe 47. So I knew that I prd and I ran fast. Like it felt really hard. But it was a fantastic time.

I was very happy with it. What

Chris Detzel: kind of, tell me about training for that, did you start training then? You mentioned that

Juliette Vielhauer: completely.

Chris Detzel: Okay. So

Juliette Vielhauer: I had started running more consistently. That's really the only thing that changed. Okay. Was that I was running just more days of the week.

I think before I was really only [00:14:00] running maybe four days a week. And I was getting now up to five or six days a week, but now that I was running more consistently, I was consistently injured. Yeah, something hurt always, pretty much all the time. And so it was after that race that I started having some issues with my calf Uhhuh.

But I had signed up for all of these races and I do not back out. Two weeks after hot cake hustle, I did the two colds of old half. My, my next shot at that sub one 40 and I ran a 1 35. Yeah. So I took eight minutes off the p off of the previous pr and I was the third overall female.

I was like, this is awesome. I'm like, I'm getting faster. The plan is working

Chris Detzel: and you're

Juliette Vielhauer: kicking butt. Yeah. I celebrated by taking two weeks off of running. I gave myself a break, was hoping that my calf situation would help itself. And two weeks after that ran the form Falls Fitness, 5K. That was my first overall win at a 5K.

Yeah. And that's where we met [00:15:00] earlier this year in February. And after that it was just race on race. I ran in case halves that, that April I ran big star half and I took another five minutes off. I ran a 1 29 and change. Dang. And I was like, okay, this is working.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. But.

Juliette Vielhauer: Calf at this point was really starting to cause me some trouble, but after that 1 29 I had all this confidence and I was doing really well in these races and actually making progress.

And I was like, maybe I'll sign up for a bigger race. Started thinking about it then. My, my grandpa and I text. Every day. And he, throughout this year has been my biggest supporter. Asking for pictures and videos of every race and wanting to know how I did love it, giving me the most compliments after everything.

And he's if you do a big race, I'll come. I'll come watch if you do a big one.

Chris Detzel: Nice.

Juliette Vielhauer: And so when I was thinking about a race to do, I immediately thought of CIM. He lives up there in Northern [00:16:00] California where I'm from, so I was like, he'll get to see it. He won't have to travel. Yeah. And he'll get to see it.

And so that's why I picked CIMI did not know anything about the race. I didn't know that it was a fast course that it was, that you didn't. Did you have any

Chris Detzel: friends that you were starting to run with at all yet, or?

Juliette Vielhauer: Yeah. I started running with White Rock let's see. It was 2023. Yeah.

The night before the K five KI had signed up for the K 5K. Okay. 'Cause I had seen it the last couple years and I was like, that looks really fun. I wanna do that. But I didn't know anybody that ran. And I was embarrassed to show up to this race alone. So I found White Rock on Facebook, went to the Wednesday night social run, met Josh

Chris Detzel: running co-op.

Yeah.

Juliette Vielhauer: Yes, white Rock running co-op. The 7:00 PM Wednesday night run at Lakehouse we're there every week. And so once I went to that, pretty much every single Wednesday I was at that run and then running six or seven miles on Saturdays with the Saturday group.

Chris Detzel: Did you, is that where you met Josh outta [00:17:00] curiosity?

So I met my wife through Dallas Running Club eventually we, got married and stuff. I like a little love story, when it comes to running, it's cool. So

Juliette Vielhauer: anyway, yeah, we just lived together. Yeah, we've been together for two years now. Went from the Wednesday night run to now,

Chris Detzel: went to the Wednesday night running to dating, or whatever.

Yeah. All right, so you start running with kind of a community in White Rock running co-op. Tell me about this cab, and let's go all the way back up to that. What, what was going on? Because to me, I'm thinking maybe she's, those shoes. You weren't the shoes too much, maybe,

Juliette Vielhauer: but by then, by this year, I had backed off on wearing the carbons all the time.

I had smart, figured out a few rotation, figured out more of a plan, but. I had been training especially through 2024, which kind of led to problems everywhere. I had been running a lot with Josh. Yeah. And if you don't know, Josh's training plan is run every mile as fast as you can. There's no easy runs.

[00:18:00] It's, he can always been

Chris Detzel: like that.

Juliette Vielhauer: He's got one speed. It's fast. And I was running with him a lot and so I was running fast with him. I wasn't really running many easy miles, which is how I ended up in this situation. I didn't understand easy miles. I didn't know how to pace myself.

Chris Detzel: Look, Josh has been doing this for years and he should know, but he just doesn't care.

No, he just

Juliette Vielhauer: passed anyways.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. But I remember him running a marathon once. I've only seen him run a marathon once or half a marathon. Never a marathon. Yeah.

Juliette Vielhauer: Never run a marathon. No. And I'm like,

Chris Detzel: But he was always fast. I remember five Ks we'd be running, this is years ago. And we'd be running the 5K and like I would pass him and he goes, Chris if you see me at the end, you're just gonna get your ass kicked.

Because, 'cause I'm just gonna sprint no matter what. I don't, and he did, he beat me up, but anyways, I dig.

Juliette Vielhauer: It's been a goal of mine since we started dating. I've been trying to pick off his [00:19:00] prs and so I've been chasing his 5K PR and I was 19 oh eight or oh seven. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: you're gonna get it, you're gonna get it.

Juliette Vielhauer: This Turkey trot this year I ran a 1845. Oh, the week before You did. You already

Chris Detzel: got it.

Juliette Vielhauer: And so I thought it would take a lot longer, so now I'm like, maybe you need to. Unretire from running and take it back. 'cause I know he tried. Alright,

Chris Detzel: so you're your grandpa said he would come to one of your races if you decide, you decide to pick CIM.

Let's talk about that and let's talk a little bit about. How you started training for it, where'd you get, did you run with anybody? Did how did, what did your training plan look like? All that kind of stuff?

Juliette Vielhauer: Yeah, so I decided on a 20 week training plan, which at this point the longest training plan that I had even formulated was four weeks.

It was for Big Star. I did a. Four weeks of consistent running to run that 1 29. And so I was like, 20 weeks I can probably make a lot more progress and get into [00:20:00] habit and get more consistent. 'cause I still was struggling with consistency. And so my, the basis of my plan I created using chat g pt.

Okay, great. Pulled my pace is using the VDOT calculator. Told it to use kind of the Jack Daniels method formula. Track workout, threshold workout, long run rest day, and then all the other days easy miles. Set it up. The structure that I had been using before used that as a basis and then tweaked it from there based on what felt comfortable.

But the paces, this was the first plan that I actually had paces in mind for any of my workouts. And I think that made a very big difference. But I mostly ran my workouts alone until the last four, six weeks. I had gotten connected with Kendall Rose, who you interviewed at a couple months ago. I think

Chris Detzel: I did.

Yeah. She's great.

Juliette Vielhauer: She's fantastic and did make that sub three goal that you were interviewing her about at c [00:21:00] She did. She did. She's so fast. I got connected with her. She's the one of the CIM ambassadors and so we had been texting throughout throughout the training book. I had, asked her all of my questions as a first time marathon runner.

This and this. I had a million questions about things. And I was coming up on a 20 mile run and didn't have anyone to run with. I'd been able to piece together some people to run my long runs with even just like a part of it. But that 20 miles I didn't have anybody to run with and I really hadn't run that far.

So I text, I was like, any chance you're running your 20 mile longer tomorrow? And she was like, yeah, and sent me a screenshot of her workout and I was like, whoa, that looks crazy. But okay, I'll come and try and hang on and, maybe I can run this one with you, or at least I'll have someone to run half my, long run with or something if I fall, I workout.

But I ran the whole workout with her and I was like, that was really fun. Shout out Ruth for Coach. You made some really awesome workouts and I pretty much ran every long run with Kendall for the rest of the training block. [00:22:00] Okay. Wow. Using her, poaching her workouts which was fantastic.

I did not at this point know how to create a long run workout. It's not something I had any experience in. I hadn't really seen it. I didn't really know how to research it or create one. So being able to tap into, especially for the 20, we did 21, 22 for all of those rounds, to be able to have some help was game changer and just like pacing each other

Chris Detzel: for, it was huge.

How did you find out about her? What'd you, how'd you meet her?

Juliette Vielhauer: Yeah, so Adam, I think it was the big run, five KI think that was in April this year. I had just signed up for CIM and I was talking to a friend there, mutual friend. I said, oh yeah, I'm just, I just signed up for CIM and he said, oh, my friend Kendall is one of the ambassadors.

Let me connect you guys. And he was the middle man. Connect with us.

Chris Detzel: That funny. There's connection, it just happened.

Juliette Vielhauer: That's just the community in DFW. Everyone [00:23:00] knows. Everyone knows someone.

Chris Detzel: Exactly. I feel like I know everyone now. I'm sure you really do. I'm getting there. It's still like foot worth.

I don't know a lot of them. I know some of them, there's a lot of really fast folks in Fort Worth. Yeah. When you look at what'd you do for nutrition? Did you think about that during your long runs and stuff? I'm sure you had to start thinking about it.

Juliette Vielhauer: I was starting to I was using gels.

It was very trial and error. Yeah, of course. Tried a few different ones. I think I, I ended up racing with the Morton gels. Those were the easiest for me. I was only one or two of my long runs was I able to actually consume the amount of gels that I wanted to be able to consume time-wise during the race.

Yeah. So that was a pain point for me. Definitely something I will continue to grow on.

Chris Detzel: That's a journey as well. I think there's, you continue doing it's gonna change. Like you'll think you got it down and then you don't, so it's always a adjusting period.

Any kind of quick hit stories before between that, training [00:24:00] block maybe with, Kendall or somebody else that, was fun.

Juliette Vielhauer: We had a, all of our long runs were. Fun and like by the end. Our last long run our peak week, we did a 22 ma run.

Pretty insane workout. And it, she had sent it to me. I was like, I really don't know if this is gonna happen. We had eight miles at a sub marathon pace, or maybe that was Kendall Marathon pace at the end. And then a three mile cool down after that. But those eight miles were just by the fourth mile of it.

I was like, this is, I am, I don't know what I'm doing here. What am I doing here? I have no business running this pace at the end of a 22 mile workout. And it was me, Kendall Money, a lobby. And Adrian Acevedo were doing that run together. And so we were like, okay, there's four of us and it's an eight mile section.

Let's take turns pacing it. So we'll each pace, two miles of it. The rest can just not look at their watch and just. Fall in the line and pace and just the one person upfront paces. We did a little diamond [00:25:00] formation and ran it like that, and so I think mon paced, the first two Kendall paced the next two.

Adrian started pacing the third two. He did not run. CIM Monnie and Kendall and I were all planning on running CIMI know Monnie up running Dallas. Instead he deferred CIM. But Adrian ended up falling off in the middle of his two that he was supposed to pace. So I was like, okay, I guess mine because I was gonna pace the last two mine, start now and let's do it.

And I was able to lock in and hit a gear that I didn't know that I had. And by the end of that, I was supposed to be. Pacing them. And I ended up going way faster than we needed to by the end of it. 'cause I was just feeling so good and on fire and it was our last really long run.

And I was like, this is awesome. I feel amazing. Like this block is over. This is like the culmination. I was just so excited. And so finishing that, I felt so good. And Kendall had given me some confidence. She was like maybe you can run a sub three. Yeah. That's when I started. Okay.

I'll make a, I'll make a pace [00:26:00] plan for Sun three. Sure. I get mine as well, but that was a really good workout and there was a few others in there where I, found a new part of myself, a new gear that I was able to hit that I never thought possible.

Chris Detzel: You think about this like before and I'm sure you already have, but when I think about your story already, you're a brand new runner.

And you learned a ton during this, and. A different runner now than you were back in April, may, June, July, August. You know what I mean? Like you're, a thousand times more than what you did, and you've already experienced just with Kendall and Monty and the other guy, wow.

Just think about that, like how much you've learned and what you've accomplished already. So how were you feeling before the race? Like before you got there? Just a few weeks before, you know what's going through your mind.

Juliette Vielhauer: I was, I had made probably 15 different PACE plans at this point.

If that how I was feeling, [00:27:00] I was nervous. And I kept forgetting about that, that 22 mile long run. And so I was doubting myself. I was forgetting that feeling of confidence. And I was, okay, we should make a three 10 plan. We should make a, maybe we should make a three 15 plan. I was trying to figure out the A, b, and C goals.

I knew that. I was gonna have a good time and that it was always in my mind that my sea goal was gonna be have fun, so that no matter what happened, the race, I did my first marathon and I had fun and were happy with that. So that was always in the back of my head, but I was nervous.

I felt like I trained really hard and I could pull off something awesome. So I was putting a little bit of pressure on myself, but trying to at least keep it in perspective. And so Josh and I went to Sacramento pretty early, I think. We went on Thursday, the race was on Sunday. My parents are there, my grandparents are there.

So we had some family time, but the night before the race, we went out to dinner with my parents and I just was a mess. I could not eat, [00:28:00] which was really horrible. I really should've eaten that. That probably would've helped during the race. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. It was the, that, that morning I was looking for my sleep score on my watch.

And it just said no sleep detected. I was like, oh, I didn't, you didn't sleep at all? No, not at all. I was like, I thought that I at least rested, but I don't think I ever actually fell asleep. I was really nervous. I was scared I was gonna miss my alarm. Like all of those stupid little things like do you ever miss

Chris Detzel: your alarm in general?

Juliette Vielhauer: There was one time for one of my long runs during this training block that my alarm did not go off and I was supposed to go run with friends. And I ended up really late and, met them like in the middle of their life.

Chris Detzel: Is that what you're thinking? That's probably what you're thinking about.

Oh, it did happen in, okay. Alright. Didn't get off to a good start, from a night before, but your grandpa was there, right? Your family was there, so they're all there to support you. So that was exciting. Josh was there. [00:29:00] So tell me like, all right, you wake up, you already woken up, but alarm goes off and you're like, okay, it's time to go.

I was up, I was ready to go. You're all dressed. What do I do now?

Juliette Vielhauer: Yeah. And I did I did kinda the morning routine that I had. Practiced. I tried to do that for my major long runs, my 21 and 22, just so I had an idea of how I wanted the morning to go. Had everything laid out. Josh drove me to the buses.

You have to only, bus to the star line. He drove me to the buses, got dropped off the. Bus that I was in. I'll back up a second. Everything that I had heard was stay on the bus when you get there. Yeah, the buses stay. Stay on the bus. And I was like, okay, great. My bus was one of the earlier ones and I guess.

From the location that I had gotten picked up, those buses were going back to pick up more. So we got there at and I think it was probably like five 30. The race started at seven and we got there at five 30 and they said, get off a bus. I was like, oh no, it is really cold [00:30:00] and it's raining.

And I was I sat on the bus. I let everybody get off the bus first before I got off to give myself just a little bit more warmth. Smart. We walked like really far to, to get to where the start was. I was like, what is going on? So I was already thrown off from the mental plan that I had, that I had heard from all of the other, I listened to a bunch of podcasts about CI, all of these videos.

And everybody had, didn't pan out

Chris Detzel: the way they thought.

Juliette Vielhauer: Everybody had said, stay on the bus. And I was like, this is just throwing off my whole mental state. And so I was already frazzled. I went to the bathroom and then I got on someone else's bus. There was buses there. Okay. I found seat and just got on the bus.

I was like, just sit here, warm up a little, stay outta the wet. It was misting that so I sat there for a while and then I had texted Kendall, but she was on a later bus. So I ended up not, meeting up with her at the start line. I got into the corral, stood right in front of the. Three hour pacer.

I [00:31:00] was like, okay, now we wait.

Chris Detzel: Good. All right. So did you carry, like, how many gels did you have with you? What you, were you ready? Were you kinda from that standpoint? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Juliette Vielhauer: Yeah. I had, I think I carried seven or eight gels with me knowing that I wasn't gonna be able to consume all of those.

But I was like, what if I drop one? Yeah. I wanna have a backup or something. I'm nervous like that, so I have to have backups and things like that. I had one gel that I was planning on having. On the start line right before the start, and then I had the rest in my pockets. And I wish, looking back that I carried a water.

That was one thing that I, oh, you didn't carry

Chris Detzel: one?

Juliette Vielhauer: Really not carrying water. I'd never Okay. All the, halves and stuff that I'd done, I'd never carried a water. I'd always been fine picking up a cup, but it was a lot more packed than I. Expected. It was really hard to get to the tables and my hands were so cold I missed half the cup.

I did have the plan at [00:32:00] least to grab a temp, at least to grab a cup from every single water stop. Whether I just type a sip or not to at least grab a cup. I'm really glad I did. I'm really glad I went in with that plan because I did miss a lot of cups, spilled most of the cups on myself. Because my hands were so cold I couldn't pinch the cup. It was wow. So that. That part of the raise did not,

Chris Detzel: do you think you, if you would've wear some light gloves, that would've helped or something? Or

Juliette Vielhauer: Probably.

Chris Detzel: Because a lot of people will carry, just throw away gloves, right? Yeah.

Juliette Vielhauer: And I had I had brought them a pair of gloves vie to California. But I, done my shakeout run the morning before and the weather was really similar and I was like I don't think I need that. So I, hindsight of course is better, but I. Should have not, yeah, should have brought water.

These are just things that I learned, not things that I would change. I'm glad that I learned them the hard way 'cause now I won't make that mistake in the future.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. That's the only way you're gonna learn. That's just life in general, right? [00:33:00] Yeah. You're gonna learn the hard way and then no.

Either you do it again or you don't, you shouldn't.

Juliette Vielhauer: Yeah. So Cal Poly, my undergrad. Their like slogan is learned by doing. I feel like I do that with everything I learn by doing, which in my mind is learn the hard way.

Chris Detzel: Same I'm the same way. People can tell me a bunch of stuff and I'm like, yeah, I dunno.

We'll see. A lot of times they're right. But yeah. All right. So you get with the three hour pacer did you see anybody you knew or because you didn't really know many people, a lot of people from Dallas was there.

Juliette Vielhauer: There was a lot of fast people, so they were starting yeah, way in front of me, but I started right in front of the three hour group and kind of ran with and around them, but the group was so massive, the three hour pace group, that it made it even harder to get water.

So I tried to stay at least a few steps ahead of the three hour PACE group. I saw at least spectating a lot of people that I knew. I saw Josh. [00:34:00] Five or six times. And I saw my parents, my grandparents mile four and 13 in the finish. How did that

Chris Detzel: make you feel by the way? Awesome. Did it inspire you bit whenever you saw 'em and you're like, alright, they're here for me.

I can't believe it. That kind of stuff. It

Juliette Vielhauer: definitely gave me a little boost. It was really cold out. I was like, I know it's not a fun day to, to be outside, they had. Spells on. Were so excited to see me every time that I passed them, I got to, I made it to the side. I could give my mom a high five.

That's awesome. So that was super cool. And then around, I wanna say mile nine or 10, Kendall came up behind me. She goes, Julian, it's Kendall running behind you. Wow. Great. So we ran together from then until maybe around 15. Felt just like a long run I was a step ahead of her.

She was half step ahead of me, pacing each other. Ran together till around 15 where I went to get a water stop. Kendall was carrying water. Smart girl. I went to a water stop to get a cup and she [00:35:00] pulled away from me a little bit as I made it back and I didn't want to speed up to get back to her.

So I just fell into, back into my comfortable pace and she kept pulling away. Which I know was her plan from halfway to start ticking off the pace. Yeah. And so let her go. I was a good way in front of the three hour pacer at this point. So I was comfortable. And I mean up to this point, up till really about I was 17 or 18, I was very comfortable.

Okay. I was having a good time. Legs felt great. I felt fresh. But it was around seven. 17 or 18. I remember seeing Josh and he had parked and backtracked on the course and so we ran like a quarter mile with me. He's like, how are you doing? I was like, this is starting to get challenging.

I think it's hard now. I hadn't hit a wall or anything yet, but, it wasn't horrible because I knew that in a lot of my workouts, I had hit that point a lot earlier. Yeah. So I felt like hitting it 17 or 18 was [00:36:00] okay. I took the front half of the race, probably slower than I needed to, but, everybody says to do that, to, to feel really comfortable and really easy.

Yeah. I kept my heart rate. Under 1 45 I was good. I was comfortable. But that point of 17 or 18, I think a little bit started to get in my head. I was like, oh no, I'm not feeling great. And starting to psych myself out of it now.

Chris Detzel: Now it's all here, right?

Juliette Vielhauer: Yeah,

Chris Detzel: in general.

Juliette Vielhauer: And then I think 18 or 19, I took my last gel, I couldn't get any more down after that. There was some dry heaving to get that one down, so I was like, I'm, I don't wanna throw up the rest of the gels that I have, so I don't know if I can even try to have another, I was still they had the electrolyte and carb water.

It wasn't just electrolyte water, it also had carbs in it. So I was grabbing that then only at the, okay. Station. So I at least got a little bit of carbs in me. But I couldn't get any more gels down. You crossed this last bridge, the J Street [00:37:00] Bridge, it's at mile 21 20 or 21. That's the last hill to cross that bridge and then it's flat the rest of the way.

Okay. So I was going up that hill to cross the bridge and. Just had no more turnover. I was still a ways ahead of the three hour pacer. I did a look behind me and. Could not, couldn't even see them. And it's a very straight course. You can see pretty far aways. And the group was massive.

You really, you couldn't miss the three hour group. So I did a quick look. I was like, okay, like we have some time. You don't need to barrel up this hill. Made it up the hill. Pace was still okay. I was still, on, on target to, to break three. And then around maybe about 23 or 24 was when just.

Everything locked up. Everything got super, super tight and at that point I was like, we're just running now. We're just doing what we can. I was like, as long as I don't walk, I'm gonna run into the finish. [00:38:00] And that's all we want at this point. I just wanna run through the finish line. And my old 25, I think the three hour pacer passed me and at that point I was like, okay, we're not even looking at our watch anymore.

We are just getting through this. We're looking at the spectators. We're trying to just have a good time. This last mile, we're just doing our best. I wasn't trying to chase them down by any means. The legs were doing the maximum that they could do.

Chris Detzel: All you could do at that day. Yeah.

Juliette Vielhauer: There's these last two turns at the end of the race.

They it's usually a left and a left, but they changed it this year, so it was a left and a right. And at that left, Josh was on the corner. I remember seeing him and for one little second, I was like, he knows that the three hour passed me. But then I saw the look on his face and I could see that he was so proud that I made it to there.

And I was like, okay. Of course he was, or I might have been, of course. And so I'm

Chris Detzel: proud of you. Like how could Josh not be proud of you? He's been living this for a while, proud of me.

Juliette Vielhauer: And then my parents and my grandparents and my sister [00:39:00] were like, on the finish line. There's all these bleachers and the crowd of people.

My dad were. Insane. Huge polka dot hat, so I could see them every time. Yeah. And I saw him the side, I didn't even need to, he's very loud. I saw them and I had tunnel vision. I saw them. I couldn't even smile. It was just, we just gotta get there. Gotta finish without falling or starting to walk or something.

I just wanna run through that finish line.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Juliette Vielhauer: I did and I felt great. I'm, I don't feel like I missed my goal. The sub three was the a goal. The reach goal I knew was a goal. I think my B goal was probably like a 3 0 5, was kind of 3 0 4, 3 0 5 was the B goal. So I'm you an A minus goal.

Thrilled. I thrilled. With the outcome of the

Chris Detzel: race. Did you get emotional at all? Because I remember one time I started crying after a marathon and I was like, I'm never doing that shit again.

Juliette Vielhauer: I thought that I would more [00:40:00] because the last week of training I was, the last two weeks really, I was very emotional.

I, okay, like my last long run, I got emotional at the end. I'm like, this is the last long run. 'cause I. The training, was so much of it. I think I, I looked and of my training block, I ran almost 800 miles. And so I'm thinking back and I'm like, damn, it seems so big. Like the race is only 26 miles, but I did this other really big thing, which to me, the training block is kind.

The bigger accomplishment is making it through that and staying consistent and making my times and my workouts and stuff like that. And so I was a, I ran with my dog a lot and my last run before we left for California, that I ran with my dog, it was emotional. My last training run with my dog every little bit.

That's great. But I crossed the finish line and I could barely get my legs to walk 'cause I had just been, my legs were so tight and I had just been running for three hours. So I was. Just trying to make it out. And they had us [00:41:00] walk for like a mono before I could meet up with my family.

It felt like that. I know it wasn't, but because I was walking so slowly but I wasn't really emotional until I got to my family. And I saw the look on my grandpa's face and my family all being there smiling at me, and then it really felt like I did this thing. They were here. I feel so supported, so grateful.

Did they wanna hug you after stinking so bad? I was very damp just because it was so okay outside and I not, I spilled every water cup on myself, so I was really quite soaked. Yeah. And it was really quite, and I think because I ran the last two miles, I think I was down to an eight minute pace, the last mile or so, eight or nine minute pace, the last mile or so.

Really, my heart rate got so low that I don't think I was producing a lot of body heat. Even just when I crossed the finish line, my, my lips were already blew. So my family was like, oh, we're so happy to see you. [00:42:00] What's wrong? Why are your lips blue? They're like, trying to put pants on me and put so much as, because I was so uncomfortable, full body shaking just something I had this.

Experience. That's crazy

Chris Detzel: that it got that cold for you. During the marathon, usually you warm up eventually, not like it was like 30 degrees or anything, right? During

Juliette Vielhauer: No, it was high forties. It was nothing crazy. I was, wet

Chris Detzel: though, and much cold, is not hot

Juliette Vielhauer: during the race itself.

I was fine. Like my hands were cold. Okay. But it wasn't really until I crossed the finish line that I realized, oh wow. I'm like really cold.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, maybe you were dehydrated and stuff like that too. There was

Juliette Vielhauer: probably a lot of reasons why, but

Chris Detzel: yeah. Wow. One, what a great story.

You battled the cold or your body, did you know? Yeah. In a way, you pushed through it and fought through it at the end and. The training was how much, how many miles did you get in a week? Like at that max? What was your max

Juliette Vielhauer: I got up to 60 miles a week. Okay. So during the training cycle, I hit [00:43:00] like my first over 40 mile week, my first 50 mile week, my first 60 mile week.

Yeah. Just in the 20 week training.

Chris Detzel: How'd your body do for that?

Juliette Vielhauer: So I, oh, we can get back to the calf problem. Yeah. I ended up going physical therapy because I just could not kick it on my own and went to Greg over at a TI on Elia. If anyone needs a pt, he's fantastic. And. He really got me back in shape.

Until then I had never done any strength training. It was one of the puzzle pieces that I definitely needed before that training cycle and was able to strength train throughout the whole 20 weeks, which, that's great. I don't know how it would've turned out if I didn't do that.

Chris Detzel: I think strength, if you can learn how to strength train, especially at your age and run, I think that, the sky's a limit for you. All right, so we'll talk about that in a minute. So you get done with the marathon, what'd you do afterwards? Did you go hang out and did you go sleep, take a shower? Obviously went to go and take a shower, get warm and Yeah.

All that kind of stuff, right?

Juliette Vielhauer: Yeah. [00:44:00] So the plan was to go right to a brewery because I was sober for the last couple months of training. Yeah. Smart. Which. Definitely helped me at least like my a hundred percent, my sleep and my recovery.

Chris Detzel: What did Josh think about that?

Juliette Vielhauer: I still went out.

Yeah. I just didn't drink, which was fine. It didn't really impact my lifestyle very much. Just made my bar tab a lot cheaper. Yeah, it's pretty much the only difference. I, my sleep was better, my body felt a lot better.

Chris Detzel: I drank two beers the other day and that morning I couldn't sleep at night because of just drinking two beers.

Because I love beer, and and I felt like shit that whole night and I'm thinking, man, there's no reason for me to even drink beers anymore. This sucks. Yeah. Welcome to the older though. Anyways,

Juliette Vielhauer: yeah, so the plan was to go to the brewery, but I was so uncomfortably cold that I was like, I actually need to shower.

Now take a really hot shower and just get warm. And we were, Josh and I were staying in my hometown in El Dorado Hills, which is just north of of Folsom where the race starts. Yeah. So we [00:45:00] had a 30 plus minute drive back there. I took a shower, passed out, slept for two or three hours because I didn't sleep the night before.

Got it. I was exhausted. That's probably part of the problem, to be honest. Yeah. The lack of sleep. So then I still had not eaten anything the whole day when I woke up by 4:00 PM and so we had planned a little bar crawl in my, I put that in quotes. Bar crawl in town center El Dorado Hills.

There are no bars. There's there's not really a lot in going on. We started at one restaurant, got some food in me, got a couple drinks. Went to one other bar, got a couple drinks, and then went to a third bar. That was the crawl because that was all the bars that there was to choose from.

But it was great. Now did your

Chris Detzel: family go with you or was it just you and Josh doing this?

Juliette Vielhauer: It was just me and Josh. Okay. Which was nice. It was chill. Got some, yeah. Let loose and drink. Maybe I would've drank less if my mom was there. Actually, probably not. My mom probably would've helped me [00:46:00] drink more.

She influence. She is a very good influence. That's good. We stayed out and she buys

Chris Detzel: you the shoes, to the shoes.

Juliette Vielhauer: You gotta stayed out till the bar's closed, which in my small town is 9:00 PM so we stayed out till nine and then I slept fantastic that night. And a funny story we were staying at a hotel in town center, so we just walked back to our motel, but the elevator was broken.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, we were on the third floor. We had to go up the stairs. We were on the third

Juliette Vielhauer: floor. And so at least that night we drank enough that I made it up. Stairs was fine, but we were staying in town until Tuesday, and so every until we left it was very difficult to make it up and down that stairs.

Chris Detzel: Down is rough. Going up is hard, but going down when your legs feel like that, yeah, go do a downhill marathon or a half marathon and bust your ass and see what it feels like just to walk. It's, it is insane. But [00:47:00] yeah. Hey, really awesome marathon. First marathon at the age of 25 and you got a 3 0 1 57 which is.

Amazing. It's unheard of. Yeah. What's next? Whatcha thinking?

Juliette Vielhauer: I'm still working on that. At least in terms of the next marathon, I'm not sure. Nothing is planned, at least in, in 2026. Obviously I qualified for Boston 2027, so yeah. I think I'll run that, but in terms of 2026, maybe a spring marathon or maybe I'll do a winter marathon again.

But at least what I have planned right now, I'm gonna do big star half again. This April, it'll be my third year running it. And they're doing an elite field this year, which I got to be a part of. So I'm really excited for that. I actually prd my half during CIM in the middle of. CIMI ran a 1 28 something.

So I'm planning on making a crazy goal to run for big star. Use what I learned training for CIM and [00:48:00] try and fall off some. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Crazy. You're gonna kill it. What? What's your crazy big goal? Are you gonna say it for half?

Juliette Vielhauer: I think I'm gonna try at least bro, 1 23, 1 25 is the range.

I was

Chris Detzel: thinking 1 22, but.

Juliette Vielhauer: Who knows? We'll see. We'll see how training goes. I've already made I think like a 12 week program. Good. So I think I'll be able to get a lot of fitness in 12 weeks.

Chris Detzel: Are you gonna allow yourself to rest a little bit for the next several Yeah. Weeks. Yeah. I

Juliette Vielhauer: ran 20 miles last week.

But Oh, overall.

Chris Detzel: Okay. Got it. Yeah.

Juliette Vielhauer: Last week, total. Last week I ran 20 miles and it was mostly just going to all the holiday lights, runs with all the run clubs. So yeah, that was fun. Probably gonna take the week of Christmas off completely and just enjoy some time off. Soak in the, yeah. Training cycle and the race itself.

Chris Detzel: That's awesome. Do you so when you start thinking about your next marathon, at some point you don't [00:49:00] know what it is. Do you think you'll find some people to run with or run with, a group of people? Do you like to think about doing these solo kind of thing?

Juliette Vielhauer: I definitely like to run with other people.

Yeah. It makes it a lot easier. I'm still struggling finding the balance of, I wanna do my workouts. I've made my workouts, I like. My workouts, I've, collected workouts that I've either done with other people or that I've created myself that I really like, that I feel like are really beneficial to me.

And so trying to find either people that I can convince to do my workouts with me, at least running as many easy of my easy miles as I can. Yeah. With Fres that's really important to me. There's so many run clubs. You can find a run club any night of the week to run with. And so I was able to do that a lot.

During training cycle. I'm gonna continue to do that with white Rock and TNSR up in Plano. And I know there's a few others. I just moved up here to Plano, so opens up even more groups that I can run with. It's a awesome, good place to be. I'm looking forward to the [00:50:00] future. Have some big goals maybe in the next three to five years.

There's definitely a lot of growth.

Chris Detzel: A lot of growth and I'll be watching, that's really one of the big reasons I wanted you on the podcast is, I was thinking about this, is there's a lot of young women specifically, running really fast times and you think about a 3 0 1 or under 3 0 5, your first marathon.

Yeah. The pie is the limit for you. I don't know, nobody knows, even you don't know what that is, but yeah. It's, the potential's huge. And I'll be watching. And so is there anything that I missed that you would say, Chris, we should have talked about this thing, during the podcast?

Juliette Vielhauer: I don't think so. I've listened to a lot of your podcasts in the past. I've picked and choose know people that maybe I've seen and I've run with. Yeah. You always ask this question at the end. And so I was thinking about it before. And so I guess to sign off on a funny note, it's my piece of advice.

If Josh ever approaches you asking to be your run coach, run in the other direction, [00:51:00] that's how you end up injured. No, that's it. Yeah, I like it. That's probably the best

Chris Detzel: one yet.

We

need 50 miles. It's important. It's very important. I love it. All right. Thank you everyone for tuning to another DFW Running Talk.

I'm Chris Zel, and don't forget to rate and review us. That's very important, Juliet. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast, whatever podcast you go to. Also subscribe to our newsletter at DFW running talk.substack.com. Juliet, thanks so much. Thanks Chris.