3:25 to 2:50 in Three Marathons: Madeleine Rouse's Breakthrough Season

DFW Running Talk: Madeleine Rouse
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Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] Welcome to DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel, so let's get started.

All right. Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel, and today's special guest is Madeline Ro. Madeline, how are you

Madeleine Rouse: Doing great. Excited to be here.

Chris Detzel: You know what's weird is obviously you mentioned this on the, let's just call it a pre-show that there's another Maddie and then there was this other woman that I interviewed, forget her first name, dang it.

But her last name is Ros. No, her last name Isro. Oh, okay. As well. Yeah. I was like, connections. So I got a little confused at first and I was like, is this Maddie? I dunno what it's called. Anyways, so it's interesting because you run with, is it Pegas or do you run with the loss or both or what?

This.

Madeleine Rouse: Primarily the loss.

Chris Detzel: Got it. And I know you run with some p folks, that we know and I know finally I reached out and here you are. And I know you're doing some awesome things, so I can't wait to talk more.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah. It's great to be great. A little intimidating and scary to be on the other side, not just like listening for fun.

[00:01:00] So hopefully I don't see anything too stupid. Hopefully I say something that your listeners haven't heard before. Possibly. And keep people entertained when they're out on a run or driving in the car, wherever they're listening,

Chris Detzel: wherever they get their podcasts. Some people listen to it or watch it on YouTube, so we'll see what happens.

Madeleine Rouse: Okay.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, you never, I was reading something today as a matter of fact, and the most watched podcast is on YouTube, not Apple or even listened to, so that's not on my podcast yet. YouTube hardly get anything, so

Madeleine Rouse: you'll get there. Yeah. All the po all the podcasts now are basically YouTube interviews.

What is this medium? Now take a lane. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: that's right. That's everything. So what we're on all of the podcast stuff, but. Man, let's get started. Tell me a little bit about yourself, how you got started with running and where it began.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah, so I feel like I'm the only person who didn't get Stu started running through soccer.

I actually never played soccer. I think mostly 'cause my parents didn't want to wake up early on a Saturday. That might have been number one reason, but number two, I'm just. Painfully uncoordinated in every area of my life. So never [00:02:00] played soccer. Growing up. I figure skated. I rode horses and swimming was my other big sports.

I pretty much did like none of the typical sports. Like figure skating. You have to be pretty,

Chris Detzel: You'd have to have some coordination. That's why

Madeleine Rouse: I didn't go very far because I was not coordinated. Now I'm also not flexible at all, which would then serve me in good stead running because runner's not really known for their flexibility.

Not at all. So it ended up paying off down the. Down the road. But yeah, I remember I, 'cause when you figure skate, you have to take ballet and I was so horrible because my poor teacher was trying to get me to even approach a split and just was never gonna happen. So the, I guess the first time I remember thinking that running was like a thing is, it wasn't the presidential fitness test, it was later than that.

It might've been sixth or seventh grade, but they had us run laps around the parking lot and that was like the mile time trial. And I somehow won and everyone had been thinking that the girls who played soccer would win. And I beat them and I was so proud of myself. Wow. But then I went on to like never run again [00:03:00] for a long time.

So it was a completely wasted opportunity. But that

Chris Detzel: You truly went to the beginning then. Yeah, it was like

Madeleine Rouse: way back in the day. This is quite the journey I

Chris Detzel: ran a mile one and never ran again. I ran one mile once until I was done, never in again or whatever.

Madeleine Rouse: I think I did one semester trying out the track team in middle school also, but track was not at the time like the cool thing to do and it conflicted for my group of friends.

It conflicted with the play. So I ended up doing the play instead. So I think I went to maybe a couple track practices and being intimidated by people going really that fast and then none of my other friends did it. So I obviously wasn't an option. 'cause when you're a middle school girl, you have to do what your friends are doing.

So you have to

Chris Detzel: fun and play. That doesn't even sound like I was in play as well, all the way from eighth grade. Were you To 12th? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you were a theater

Madeleine Rouse: kid.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, so I did running, like cross country and, but I wasn't really extremely fast. But yeah, I loved it. So that's interesting.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah. Most of my friends were the, [00:04:00] of the theater kid variety. And again, I wasn't very good. I was just along for the ride and only did it for a couple years. But then in, in high school I went to boarding school and everyone had to do a sport every season. There was no option not to do a sport.

And I remember the fall sports, it was like soccer and field hockey that everyone was doing. I picked field hockey where you would run. So I just ran up and down the field, not even approaching the ball most of the time because again, not coordinated. And

Chris Detzel: you're nice sport by then, so you should at least know to go after the puck or whatever.

It's,

Madeleine Rouse: yeah, I knew what I was supposed to be doing and that I just did not do it whatsoever. But I was great at just running aimlessly up and down the field so I could look really busy, even if I was accomplishing very well. It reminds

Chris Detzel: me of a kid, right? You put 'em into soccer and they just run aimlessly across the field, back and forth.

They're not even going the ball. Totally. They don't even care. They're just running

Madeleine Rouse: Me on 15 As at, 15 on, 'cause I wasn't even good enough for JV field hockey. I was on thirds, like the rung below jv. So me at 15 [00:05:00] on thirds, the field hockey team, I was approximately the same level, skill level as like a 3-year-old on a soccer team.

So that was me.

Chris Detzel: That's great.

Madeleine Rouse: So senior year rolls around and I got tired of half-assing, really poor field hockey playing. And I decided on a whim to try out for the cross country team. And again, they had us do a mild time trial. And in that one I came in second and the coach was like, where have you been?

Exactly. You could have been doing this the whole time. So that, that kind of got me into running in a more serious kind of way. I started doing it. I remember distinctly the first time there was a spare Sunday and I didn't have anything else going on, so I decided to go out for a run and I had no watch at that time 'cause the coach timed you.

And so I didn't even have a watch, I had no way of knowing what I was doing. And I just ran aimlessly for an hour. And then I went home and I mapped out, got on my laptop and mapped out how far that was, just based on my memory of the route. And I was like, wow, I ran seven [00:06:00] miles. That's so far it just blew my mind, especially in high school.

Yeah, but I remember that was a really enjoyable hour. I should do that more often outside of practice. So that kind of got me into it as something where I realized oh, I could be pretty good at this if I put effort into it and tried. But again, it's just one season of cross country.

That was my soul, awareness of running. And there were girls on the team who had been doing it longer, who knew more about how to train and, the coach was doing her best, but I wasn't, I was not taking it any kind of seriously at that point. Did you do well

Chris Detzel: or what? I mean did you beat in most of your teammates still or?

Madeleine Rouse: I did. I was always like the second girl on the team. Although my other distinct memory from that experience, I had the highest of highs and then the lowest of lows, which was getting to our like league championship. And I went in with very high expectations for myself. But again, I was so new to this that I didn't have like spikes of any kind and this was like a low pressure [00:07:00] situation.

So the coach had not advised me on what shoes to get on any kind of gear. So we show up and it's like December and New England, it had snowed. And I just remember going off the line, I took three steps and I wiped out immediately 'cause I was trying to run across a snowy field in like regular shoes. And so that day was horrible.

Like not a fond memory whatsoever. Although I do still have the t-shirt from that championships from like 2004. Did you finish at

Chris Detzel: least or get back up and start? I finished.

Madeleine Rouse: I and one day maybe I'll go scouring the depths of the internet and try to see if they had a time from that. 'cause I'm sure it was like a 30 minute whatever it was.

Yeah. Because I kept wiping out, I kept falling. It was horrendous. Grit, you gotta stick to it. You gotta finish the race.

Chris Detzel: At least you finished the race even. You guys did last. Yes. I didn't get lost Did you?

Madeleine Rouse: I didn't quite get DFL, but I blocked out so much of the rest of the day that maybe I did.

For all I know I didn't tell you. I'm sure

Chris Detzel: the coach wasn't happy with you or you care. She was

Madeleine Rouse: a very sweet woman actually. I saw her. I was just back at on campus for our 20 year [00:08:00] reunion and we had a very long chat. She's still there. She's still coaching. Wow. She's wonderful. So no, she did not gimme any kind of hard time.

So thank you Mrs. Bryant. Shout out Mrs. Bryant.

Chris Detzel: Yes, thanks Mrs. Bryant. All right, so you finished high school to get a little bit into running and so what happened then?

Madeleine Rouse: I ran all summer and at home. It turns out the route that I had always run around my neighborhood equated to a 5K basically. And again, I still had to watch, I still was not tracking this in any kind of way, but I would go on map my run.com, which I'm pretty Sure.

Still exists.

Chris Detzel: Still there.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah. And I would do the route I did and it came out to be about a 5K. So I just had just gotten in my head that was like every night I would go run that same loop. And I did that for the rest of the year. And then in college, I didn't run in college, so long story short, but I was on the crew team in college.

I was the coxswain for the men's heavyweight crew team. So I ran for exercise. 'cause when you're the coxswain, you're just sitting there, you're basically dead weight. You yourself [00:09:00] don't have to do any cardio, but, and I'm not do, I wasn't doing what the guys were doing, in winter training or their afternoons when they're lifting, like they always like to see the, that their coxswain was putting in some effort that they just weren't bumming around.

And so I ran for exercise in college and my school had a really good cross country team. Like their cross country team was great when I was there, so I would always like, try to tag on to the back of their pack when they were training or, running their loops around. So I basically just ran for exercise all through college and knew that I could.

What did you go to college? I went to Barnard College. It's the women's college at Columbia. So in New York City. Yeah. Alright, awesome. So I was running all around New York for a long time and it was Oh awesome. A great place to run, obviously. But yeah, again I wish I had any idea what was going on around me or any kind of serious awareness.

'cause even after college, like I ran all the time in Central Park and I had no idea that you could even run professionally as like a distance runner. So I'm sure I was running with a lot of [00:10:00] celebrities in the running world and I would've had no idea who they were.

Chris Detzel: So you weren't you were just running on your own and you weren't like going to races, you weren't running with the community, you wasn't doing, you weren't doing anything like that or,

Madeleine Rouse: no, I, the first, I am so weird.

The first race I ever did was the Staten Island half Marathon. That was literally the first race that I ever paid for and signed up to do because I couldn't tell you how I ended up with a half marathon versus a 5K. Just couldn't tell you. I think in my head I was like if I'm gonna pay to run, which is something I do every day for free.

So if I'm paying for this thing now, I'm gonna make it longer. Not as well. Yeah, I did the Staten Island half marathon. I had never, I don't think I'd ever run longer than seven miles to that point. I didn't know training was a thing. I just, I would either go out and run like 30, 40 minutes or I would try to push it to an hour, and the hour was my, like really intense long run.

Chris Detzel: It makes sense, right? You don't know anything and you probably learned a little bit. We're just eyeballing

Madeleine Rouse: it here. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: We all did that, swinging it, why not [00:11:00] just go run a 10 k every day for seven days straight and try to go faster every day? Exactly. Why not? That's what I used to do. I was like I'm running as fast as I can every day,

Madeleine Rouse: yeah. Easy days, harder days workouts. What are those like? I didn't know. Every, you get past the point when the run itself is just the workout and then you start incorporating actual workouts and it becomes mind blowing to think about and hard to explain to people, because to most people the run is the workout.

So if you tell someone it's an easy run day, they're like, does not compute.

Chris Detzel: Just say it's really difficult to, if you're spending and not to get completely off I promise you, we'll bring it back around, but I

Madeleine Rouse: love a good tangent. They're my favorite. Good.

Chris Detzel: When you start running, 40, 50, whatever, miles a week, and you start incorporating like weights or core stuff or whatever, geez, that's a lot of stuff.

You gotta run and do weights and do core and but eventually you do, or if you don't, then as you get injured a lot easier and runners don't really do that a lot because we are spending a lot of time running, it's hard,

Madeleine Rouse: You start folding it. I [00:12:00] think I was lucky in that I always liked it and I was already, always motivated to do it because I was always in some form of athletics.

So it was just like part of the day you're gonna do, you're gonna exercise as part of the day. It's a non-negotiable. It just depends on what it is. But yeah, it's hard. You have to love it and then you have to love it enough to incorporate all the extras, like the lifting or the recovery or the core or whatever.

And again I love it a lot, but. Not quite that much to incorporate all those things. Maybe one day when there are more hours in the day.

Chris Detzel: Exactly. But yeah,

Madeleine Rouse: do as I say, not as I do.

Chris Detzel: So you ran this half marathon. Do you remember what time you got and how you felt?

Madeleine Rouse: I know it was under one 40, it was like one 30.

I could probably look it up on New York Road Runners, but I remember that's when I learned, realized like, 'cause I looked at the overall rankings and looked at where most other people were finishing and was like, actually that's pretty fast. Just, yeah. In the grand scheme of things, that was another time when that hit me like, oh, that was pretty good.

I should probably keep going with this and do more of it. And I think that's where I just, I always like the half marathon distance. 'cause it's yeah, same, just [00:13:00] long enough to really hurt, it's still not like a marathon, so you're not it's a less of a time commitment to train for to do hundred percent.

The logistics are less intimidating. All of that.

Chris Detzel: Completely agree. I think that. I've done a few marathons and I decided, I remember it was 10 years ago, was my last marathon, like official marathon. And my wife was like, you're mad every time you're training and every time you're trying to get to that marathon, why?

Why are you even running a marathon? You don't have to run a marathon. You don't have to. And I was like, I don't know why. When she said that, I was like, yeah, I don't have to run a marathon. So I never ran an official marathon again after that third one. I was like, yep, that, I'm just gonna do half marathons, or, I've done 20 milers, I've done 50 Ks and stuff like that.

But that marathon, for whatever reason the training and everything else just, it got to me because I was like, I wanna run a three 20 and, I've gotta train for that. I've gotta do all the things and run 30 or, 60, 70 miles a week and just. I just didn't like it. I was always angry about it and so I didn't, I stuck.

Yeah. [00:14:00] Somebody always

Madeleine Rouse: says that on every one of our runs, somebody will be like, none of us have to be doing this. Exactly. Nobody has to do this.

Chris Detzel: It's hard, once you start getting into a community though, there's a little bit of the fomo, there's a little Hey, that's my friends now.

Especially since you've built the relationships with them.

That's a good thing though. That's why you build that community is because it push you to be a little bit better, and then I think that's important. All right, so you did this half marathon. Sorry about the tangent again. And no, I

Madeleine Rouse: Love a tangent.

Chris Detzel: And so you kept going. You thought, Hey, I'm pretty good at this.

Madeleine Rouse: I started doing more of the New York Road runner races, although I was always a little conflicted about them, just because New York grown runners is such a behemoth and it's its own like universe, and I've never been someone who likes I love running because there's not a lot of hoopla and logistics around it.

Like anyone, all you need is a pair of shoes. People run barefoot. You may not even need the shoes. Just go out of your house and put one foot in front of another that's gonna little more running. Recommend.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Madeleine Rouse: No, I wouldn't recommend it either.

Chris Detzel: Have you [00:15:00] tried it, by the way, have you ever tried it once or twice?

Madeleine Rouse: No. No, I have not. I have never tried it, except accidentally if I happen to be barefoot and have to run after something. But I would again, yeah, not recommend it. Don't enjoy it. I thought

Chris Detzel: when I first started running, so this is like I was doing some runs and stuff like that, and then barefoot running was the big thing back then, right?

Yeah. And I thought, shit, like I'm gonna go try this once or twice and see. And so I tried a mile and I was like, I couldn't run again for another two or three days because my feet hurt and I had blisters. I was like, okay, I'm not doing that again. No sucked.

Madeleine Rouse: Remember what were the toe?

The toe shoes? Yeah. Like the vibrams or something. Yeah. There was a guy now in college who became obsessed with them and that was became like his whole identity. Like whenever he ran for cardio, he would wear those and everyone made merciless fun of him for it. It's that will never be me. I'm not gonna be that person.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, me either. And I know a guy that does it today and he seems to like him. He doesn't do it for any kind of recognition or anything, he just likes it and I'm like, I don't know vet man. No way. But alright, so got on tangent again. But yeah,

Madeleine Rouse: I [00:16:00] wish, like looking back on it now, I was in my days in Manhattan, I was, happy Hour was a much bigger part of my life then than it is now for obvious reasons.

Yeah, I mean I look back on that now and I really regret how much I could have been doing if I, number one knew about it. Number two, had the wherewithal to. Tell myself Yeah. Not to go out to a happy hour on a Tuesday. Like I could have been waking up and supposed to do a new twenties. That's what you're supposed to do.

I, come on, New York City, it's such a great place to run. And it is. I did it all, it was all solo at the time. I didn't have a running community there. I didn't, a lot of people would jog on and off, but it wasn't, no one was really training for anything. Yeah, I I look back on that and I really wish I'd had my act together more.

But again, this was even pre-Instagram, I feel like now it's so easy to find community. Yeah. What did runners do before inter Instagram? How did they make friends before Strava? Like, how did they make running friends,

Chris Detzel: all this stuff is new. Like you think about the last seven or eight years, Strava, Garmin's been [00:17:00] out around for a while, but all of it's new, right?

Like Instagram's, all that stuff's so well.

Madeleine Rouse: I had, at one point my dad gave me his old Garmin that he'd used and it was like the giant brick one. It was like bigger than my hand. It was huge. And I remember I tried it once and it was so annoying to wear. It was like, who wants to do this? Exactly.

Ever. Yeah, I think then it was like 10 years before I tried to get a garment again. So yeah, I would just race on and off In New York, I did the, the Brooklyn half. I did the greets. Greets, great Gallup, but I was mostly just running for fun, for exercise, and I would give myself random challenges.

Just one time I remember being like what if I just ran? Two or three times around Central Park just as a loop, like not as part of a race. And again, this is how much of a baby runner I was. I mean that equates to like, that's basically a half marathon. And I was like, people can just do this.

You can just walk out the door on a random day and you can just go run a half marathon for fun. Not even in a race setting. All of this was new and exciting to me. That's yeah, I was very, that's,

Chris Detzel: I mean I love that, you just [00:18:00] started running 'cause you loved it, you didn't care about the race necessarily,

Madeleine Rouse: yeah. I think that is, and I am not like a big racer now and I wish I was, because I think racing a lot, is it, I know it doesn't work for everybody, but I do think racing a lot is its own form of really good training. 'cause it's it's a skill to be able to be in a race setting and turn it on when you need to.

And run, have to dodge a ton of people. Even that's its own skill that you don't get if you're not racing a lot. So I wish I was the type of person who wanted to race more, but I'm just not, I admire those who are,

Chris Detzel: something I learned was, I've learned this a long time ago, but more specifically, somewhat recent, talking to a bunch of people from the sloths, Matthew Campbell.

Yeah. I think you've, he's been on a couple times. Yeah mentioned doing lots of 5K races over the summer and all of that kind of stuff, and I thought, 'cause a couple years ago I would do races because I a had a half marathon this last weekend. And I was like, two years ago I did the same half marathon and ran half marathons over the summer.

And in Texas, as, like running half marathons in the summer is brutal. Like not fun. You can run a one [00:19:00] 50 or two hours and it is, it felt like you're dying, just, it's usually a slow race, but no. So I was like, I'll never do that again. So I took his thinking. And advice, is hey, just, run a bunch of five Ks in the summertime and then, because there's nothing like, and I've always thought this part is, there's nothing like racing to get you ready for race day.

Because sometimes you start out too fast, go kill yourself on a 5K, it's fine, it's just, yeah, it's 5K, whatever, half marathon's different. So get used to that, and just be ready for that race. And so that's what I did was I ran probably seven or eight, five Ks or more, over the summer and I did the Wednesday night.

That's awesome. 5K was free, and wait,

Madeleine Rouse: Which hat did you do last weekend?

Chris Detzel: I did the it was the Cotton it was the revel race downhill in Utah. The Cottonwood something. I got a PR and I was happy and I counted it, it was 3000 feet down, but still I

Madeleine Rouse: saw people like those like St.

George. That's the only Utah race I know. But no, this one's,

Chris Detzel: That's what everybody, but it's like St. George, it's just a downhill race [00:20:00] all the way until like mile 10 and then the last three miles is straight. It's not, it feels like uphill, but it's not, but yeah, it's fun.

Awesome.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah, I wish, most of the slots do a summer of speed type of thing, and they'll do the five Ks and they do the shorter workouts. And this is where again, like I know intellectually things I should do to get faster, and then I just don't do them because I prefer other things better. I've, I maybe it goes all the way back to my first race being like a half marathon.

I just, I like to go longer and slower. There is nothing more terrifying to me than having to like. Max it out and go as fast as you can. I do not scare you. Don't like it the ever living crap out of me, right? So I just don't do it. But yeah, again, like you don't get faster just running this your marathon pace for every workout.

And again, like something I know intellectually and have been told many times and I can see it from other people's training and what happens in my training and then I just don't do it. Because you could always tell me to run out, go out and run like a six mile tempo and I'll do that very happily.

But if someone were to tell me like run a few fits, like absolutely not. I wanna [00:21:00] throw up and vomit everywhere. This is like my worst nightmare. So like I won't even, I'm so like, I won't even do a 5K because I was like, 5K is too short. You want me to go how fast? No.

Chris Detzel: What is your training like? We still have this whole journey to go through, but what's, yeah, I'm

Madeleine Rouse: sorry.

You speaking of tangent, I can ramble, I can talk anyone's ear off forever, so I will endeavor not to do that. Yeah. So we were in New York for until 2017 and then my husband and I moved to Texas in June, 2017. And I remember moving like immediately, I was like, I don't know anyone here. I'm gonna get really into running.

That's gonna be my thing. I'm gonna take it seriously. I had nothing else to do because again, I don't know anyone. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: that's how you get to know people though. I love it.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah, totally. But I decided the first thing I needed to do if I was gonna be a real serious runner was sign up for my first ever marathon.

So I signed up for wow. The Dallas Marathon. 'cause it was there and at the time it was really cheap back in the day of 2017, seemed wildly inexpensive. It's not like that anymore.

Chris Detzel: None them. And I'm like, geez, even for a half marathon is gonna cost [00:22:00] you 70. And I'm like, have marathons

Madeleine Rouse: are, yeah.

Are like $200. Yeah, it's wild. So you get to

Chris Detzel: and I,

Madeleine Rouse: I'm trying to remember as I'm saying this, I'm really trying to remember how I trained for that first Dallas. 'Cause I've been on and off with coaching plans, Hal Higdon, Jack Daniels, like I did not know either of those names. I think I maybe Googled a few things and I did know I need this much.

I knew you were supposed to run 20 miles a few times, so I would get my 20 mile runs in and yeah, I still didn't even have a Garmin at that point. I think I was exclusively tracking things on my phone. And I, sometimes I'll come across an old screenshot of when I screenshotted it for myself. I could probably dig it out somewhere.

But it wasn't really,

Chris Detzel: did you put it in maps or something? Like you just do it on a map or you actually do a Google map? The app was,

Madeleine Rouse: because it wasn't str, but it was one of the other run tracker apps. It was like pre Nike plus

Chris Detzel: Nike, whatever.

Madeleine Rouse: No, it wasn't Nike. It wasn't like a brand name. This is how basic and basic I was at the time.

I was not even Nike plus you. You [00:23:00] didn't even know

Chris Detzel: about the brands.

Madeleine Rouse: No, I did not. I didn't get like fast shoes. I think I just ran the marathon in. I didn't know there was a difference in shoes. I didn't know you were supposed to wear different kinds of shoes for different days. I know. Alright, no problem.

Chris Detzel: Let's

Madeleine Rouse: back up.

Chris Detzel: Did you have kids at all in 2017? How old did your kids? You have four of 'em, by the way. So I ran, but we haven't even talked about yet. So yeah,

Madeleine Rouse: I will. And again, I can talk anyone. Zero off. I'll try to be more succinct on things. You're fine. So we got pregnant when I was training for Dallas.

So I ran Dallas, three months pregnant with my oldest. Wow. And I ran 3 25. Wow. And it was a friend of mine's had commented on when I like posted it to social media afterwards. A friend of mine commented you qualified for Boston. And I was like, what? What's Boston? What's Boston?

I knew the Boston Marathon was a thing. I went to high school in Massachusetts. Yeah. Like Marathon Monday was a big deal. I had a lot of friends who went to BC and still lived up there. And that was a thing, but I didn't realize like qualifying for Boston was a thing. No clue. Yeah. So [00:24:00] after that, when I, that's when I think, I think that's what kicked me off, like doing more research on things because.

When someone starts talking about the Boston qualification process, like you do have to get your re research, you have to look into it. So then I ended up running Boston in 2019, April, 2019, which unbeknownst to me, a lot of other DFW runners ran Boston that same year. So I took my, almost 1-year-old, I had some friends and family come up from New York to watch my kid while I was running.

And for that one I actually I'll vaguely name drop. Not that she remembers who I am, but Kelsey Bruce was running some sort of fundraiser for DBU or something where she was like selling like coaching plans or quasi one-on-one coaching and. This would've been, yeah, like winter 2019 or something.

And I was like I don't wanna be investing too much in this, but this is affordable. This looks really low pressure. I'll sign up with Kelsey. And so she gave me like a program to follow and that was my first time doing like workouts program. Because before then I was doing fart le without [00:25:00] realizing they were fart le.

Like I was vaguely remembering some workouts. We did cross country season and I would do on and off stuff, but I wasn't, I wasn't going out and running like 12 hundreds or something. So suddenly I had those programmed into my workouts after Boston,

Before Boston. This is the lead up to Boston.

So I had no training for Dallas 2017 and then realized I qualified for Boston, registered for 2019 and ran that one and had, but you also had a baby

Chris Detzel: like in between. I had

Madeleine Rouse: a baby in there, casual. I had one of those, and I do, oh my gosh, this is probably way tmi, but I do. I do distinctly remember when my son was, oh my gosh, three or four months or something like that.

And I was on a nine mile run. It has been burned in my memory, the PTSD of it. But my husband was watching him and he texted me the most graphic, disgusting picture of Jamie's. Sorry, Jamie. I hope you never see this of Jamie's like dirty diaper when he was, and I was just out on my run. Have fun with that.

I'll run a few more miles. You got it, you're fine.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, it's like I, I [00:26:00] was almost done, but now I think I'll run a few more.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah. Now I think I'm gonna be staying out a little bit longer here.

Chris Detzel: I'm gonna go eat some breakfast. Sorry. Yeah.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah, and I always have been very lucky. Matt is my husband Matt is, he doesn't run himself, which sometimes I wish he did.

Sometimes I'm happy he doesn't. 'cause now we don't have to plan around his runs or anything, so that's good for me. Exactly. He works out religiously. Every morning at 6:00 AM he goes to the garage and lifts his weights or whatever it is he does. Which I'm always telling him like, I won't lift weights.

'cause I think it's horrifically boring. I think it's the most boring thing ever. And then he's but you just run around the same neighborhoods every day for an hour and a half. How is that not boring? And I'm like, it's different. It's completely different.

Chris Detzel: You can be in your thoughts and veg out, and still get exercise.

Yeah. Listen to my

Madeleine Rouse: podcasts, make my little mental lists obsess over things. Yeah. So I've always been very lucky in that like he has his exercise routine and he knows that I have mine. So even from the earliest days, there was no juggling when we had [00:27:00] kids over no, I have to like make arrangements with him or like really negotiate.

It was no, like if it works out in the baby schedule in my schedule, like I'm gonna take this time to run and I will tell you what you have to do, but like I will be gone. And it's worked out great and I'm very lucky.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, that's awesome. He's not a runner, but he understands and I guess he works out too, that's good. I think it's important you got four kids, which we haven't gone to all the that journey yet, it's a lot to, to deal with. In, in addition to work and running with your friends now and everything else. And and you're running a lot. I'm trying.

It's not like you're not, running just a few miles here and there. You're running 20 milers and then you're gonna races it's funny

Madeleine Rouse: how things ratchet up, Yeah. Even with long runs, 20 is the new, 18 is the new, 16 is the new 12. Things just ratchet up. And especially if you do find that community and you can realize oh, going out and running like two, three hours with people is a lot of fun.

And you have really fun conversations and really funny conversations and laugh your ass off. It's great. Yeah. I will say I'm so grateful for. The slots and the [00:28:00] runners here. I have been very much on and off in terms of meeting up with people running. I was really good about it, and I don't think this is unrelated at all.

I think it is very much related, but my marathon PR came after a cycle where I was religious. I ran with people like three times a week. Of course, Tuesday track Thursday there would be some sort of tempo or Fort Luck, and then Saturday long run, and I made every single one of those group runs and it was super religious about that.

And then I peered off that cycle. And I don't think that's unrelated. Like you run with people and everyone gets faster and you all push each other and everyone makes each other better. I've gone through a period over the past few years having. My twins, where I've been much more of a solo runner. I just, and I've also gotten older over those three years that my twins have been alive, where I suddenly need a lot more sleep than I used to.

And recovery is a lot more difficult. I used to be able to get two hours of sleep and then still meet people for a long run or track or what have you. And I cannot do that anymore. So that doesn't help. But yeah, I think running [00:29:00] with other people is so important. Running with people, it's so important not just for the community element, but just on a basic level.

I think training wise, like you don't get faster unless you're pushing yourself. And we're all very, I think all runners are very highly motivated and disciplined people, but, and I count myself as someone who could motivate myself in a solo workout, but it's just not the same as when you're running with someone and trying to chase people.

Sorry, that was a very long-winded answer.

Chris Detzel: No, I can, I completely end and I think that's very relevant. But let's also go back to the Boston Marathon that we didn't talk about, your training and things like that. And then how you did. And at Boston,

Madeleine Rouse: I wish I'd had some sort of watch and God bless Kelsey.

She did her best telling me not to go out too fast, but I wasn't really paying attention to paces and she was like tracking me and I remember looking at her messages after and she's I saw your first few miles and was like, really hoping you weren't gonna blow up. And I wouldn't say I blow blew up, but I definitely aggressively [00:30:00] positive split that race.

But Boston 2319 probably not the run I could have had if I tried to pace myself whatsoever, but I was still super happy with that. Super proud of it. It was a really, that one was a really weird weather-wise day. Other people who ran in 2019 will remember the whole morning it was thunderstorming and then it became really hot and really humid and muggy.

And then right after I finished it started down pouring again. Like the weather was all over the place. So I thought I was pretty grateful to have had my couple years of Texas running under my belt because it got to, I think 70 or almost 70. And I was like, eh, this is nothing. This is fine.

Chris Detzel: I'm used to this.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah, no problem. As long as it's not lightning or, thundering. We're good. Yeah, that was awesome. Boston went great. And then actually the next marathon I ran was Dallas 2019. It was again, three months pregnant with my second son. And friends of mine came down from New York for that race.

'Cause another friend of mine was running the half marathon and she prd in that race. So shout [00:31:00] out Lauren, a great job. And I felt so guilty because they were waiting for me and I had my anticipated time and in my head I was like I'm pregnant again. I'm not trying to run super fast. But like the last time I ran Dallas, I was exactly the same amount pregnant and I did fine.

So I did not have high expectations for that race. But I didn't expect what happened, which is that I totally blew up. I, it was like a four hour something marathon. I was walking all around the right, like the back stretch of White Rock. I'm confused.

Chris Detzel: I'm confused. You alright? In 2019 you did Boston.

You ran a three 19. And then we're talking about which Boston is this? Boston. This is Dallas. This

Madeleine Rouse: is a Dallas marathon. Oh, Dallas, 2019. Yeah, so April I ran marathons in 2019. Wow. In April. In December.

Chris Detzel: Okay. Okay. My apologies.

Madeleine Rouse: No. Sorry, I missed

Chris Detzel: that.

Madeleine Rouse: I need like a flow chart or something.

Chris Detzel: And then you ran D Okay, got it.

Then you ran Dallas also in 19. Yes. And that's when you were also pregnant?

Madeleine Rouse: And I was also pregnant, yes. So I had run, at that point, I ran two Dallas marathons and I was pregnant both times.

Chris Detzel: Wow. [00:32:00] Okay.

Madeleine Rouse: Not something I would recommend, talk to your doctor.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Madeleine Rouse: Make your own medical decisions with your doctor's advice.

But no, it was fun. I just totally blew up. I was like, and again, I hadn't figured out my nutrition, like for Boston. I had a Luna bar at the start, and then nothing throughout the entire race. So nutrition was just not a thing for me in a, in running. So again.

Chris Detzel: Baby, you gotta eat.

Madeleine Rouse: I was still nursing when I ran Boston.

I was still nursing at the time. It was, and I wasn't fueling myself properly. It was not a pretty scene. So in hindsight, it makes complete and total sense that I get to the Dallas Marathon in 2019 and I blow up that way because like me looking back now, like you're not fueling yourself properly.

You're not. Hydrated, you are sleep deprived. You have a one-ish year old at home and you're pregnant. No wonder. At the time I wasn't thinking any of that. 'cause at my level of knowledge about training, about nutrition, about the sport, I wouldn't say it's super high now, but at the time it was [00:33:00] like subterranean levels of knowing nothing.

So don't see what I did. Kids, I would not recommend that. It's

Chris Detzel: funny is like you've run, that was your third marathon. It seems like you would've learned some stuff about nutrition, but you would think

Madeleine Rouse: one would be wrong.

Chris Detzel: You've run pretty good for the most part except for that last one.

And so just think if you were, we're gonna get to some good marathons here and although those, most of 'em are pretty good. Everybody blows up at some point. That just happens. And it sounds like that happened to you in Dallas in 2019.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah, I remember just walking around White Rock, like contemplating calling my husband to have him pick me up and being like, there's really nowhere good to get picked up right now.

Yeah, so I guess I should finish. And I was like texting my girlfriends that were at the finish I'm so sorry you guys came all the way here. I'm going so slow. But they were very nice about it, very patient. 'Cause my poor other friend had just run the half marathon and she'd finished and she was done.

So everyone was waiting around for me for an hour and a half. I'm sorry. It's really

Chris Detzel: not that long. When you put in perspective, it's just a little bit of time. So they came to see you, good or bad, and it's a marathon. That's just what happens sometimes. Shout out [00:34:00] Lauren,

Madeleine Rouse: Allie, and Claire for coming all the way down here and watching me blow up a marathon.

You are all very supportive and I'm very a very lucky friend. And congrats Lauren on your PR 2019 Dallas. Geez. I'll skip. Congrats. 2019.

Chris Detzel: I don't think I ever told you.

Madeleine Rouse: Shout out. Alright, so then COVID

Chris Detzel: hits. So what happened? COVID hits,

Madeleine Rouse: I think what happened with me is what happened with a lot of people, like everyone was home.

Everyone had a lot of time on their hands. And I had my second son, my middle son was born in June, 2020. So like the depths of COVID and I had nothing else to do but run a lot. And I really just wanted to get outta the house. I had two young kids at home and my husband was suddenly home all the time.

He had been, he was a consultant at the time, so he had been traveling all week, but suddenly he's home too. Everyone's home and I'm like. Great. You're home to watch the kids peace. So I started running a lot more. Yeah. So I, and I think a lot of people had similar experiences during COVID where everyone had more time on their hands, everyone was going stir crazy and people had different comfort levels with going back to the gym, health and safety [00:35:00] wise.

So running is like the ultimate social distance, safe COVID activity 'cause it's all outside. So yeah, I think I had a pretty typical experience with running that a lot of other people can possibly relate to during the COVID years. And that's really when my running got supercharged because I signed up for, oh my gosh, was it January or February, 2021?

It was winter 2021 and I signed up for a half marathon at Town Lake in McKinney. And I re I just remember thinking I'd been trying that race. I really wanted to break. Was that the one 30 barrier? It was, there was some barrier. I was trying to break that. Race. Yeah, I, and I should have done research on my own races at this point, but I'd been slowly ratcheting down my half PR over this time.

I remember I tried a few times to break one 30, finally broke one 30. Then I was really trying to PR and try to break, like 1 27 became the magic number in my head. So I wanted to break 1 27. And so I think that Town Lake race was the 1 [00:36:00] 27 PR attempt and it was a winter race. And I don't do great in cold weather.

All my other cold weather races, I've been layered up like the Michelin man. Like I do not enjoy the cold. But I distinctly remember, I was like, I'm a serious runner now. I'm going for my pr I'm trying to break 1 27. I can't show up in a million layers to a race. I have to look like a hardcore real runner.

So I show up in a tank top and shorts and I thought I was so tough. And then I get out and get outta my car. 'cause of course I was like. In the, with the butt warmers the whole time. And I get outta my car and I saw who, now I now know to be Maddie Steer and like up front at the race with Ray and a few other people.

And I just remember thinking like, wow, they must be super fast. 'cause all of them are like, they're wearing like nothing and it's 30 degrees outside. So they're hardcore.

Chris Detzel: They are fast.

Madeleine Rouse: And they are hardcore and they are really fast. And of course I didn't know any of them at the time.

Didn't know who Maddie was. I just remember seeing her and being like, she must be really fast. And she is. So I ran, I think I tried to hang with them for the first two [00:37:00] minutes of that race and then looked down and realized, yeah. Realizing like that they were going like, I think even 5 55 I, at this point, I had my Garmin finally and I looked down and I saw like a 5 55 or like low sixes.

Wow. And I was like, okay. My, yeah, I knew enough by now to know that was like I was gonna die. There was no way. Yeah. So I let them go ahead and I was like in second and I was just following them. I was trying to keep them in second female, not second, overall, second female. Got it. Because I was counting

Chris Detzel: Maddie, the other Maddie's, number one

Madeleine Rouse: other Maddie, always number one.

Definitely number one, but. In that race. That race is like the origin story of everything with DFW running for me, like that race, I just have so many fond memories of it. 'cause I made what turned out to be like all of my good friends down here, like all of my running friends, everyone I know everyone who's sustained me over these years as a wonderful community.

So it just very fond memories to that town like race. So I'm running, I'm the second female. I am getting tired. 'cause again, I can't pace myself. And I remember looking back and seeing this like other blonde ponytail coming up [00:38:00] in third female and I was like, okay, can't let her beat me. But turns out she did.

She did. Because it was one of those COVID staggered starts. So she started after me and she ended up, yeah. So that is how I ended up meeting Maddie and Liz Johnson, who has since moved to Chicago, which we're all very sad about. I know she's. Living her best life up there, but we all miss her daily. And I ended up meeting, so I ended up meeting up with Maddie and she told me to join the PRC Facebook group.

And I think she, I think the Ray's Track Club group was existent at that point on Facebook. So I joined both of those groups. I met Liz, and Liz and I, we had, we both had the time, had two sons who were like exactly the same age, so That's great. I bonded over that. Yeah. We became friends after that. Kids play, kids can play.

Do kids go

Chris Detzel: play when we go run?

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah, totally. Just hanging out at the house. You'll be fine. 2-year-old children are there. Okay. Dads are there. Totally. Exactly. So after that race I just started joining those Facebook groups and seeing when they were meeting to run and I started, meeting at, [00:39:00] joining the runs at Plano West when people were still doing that for Track Tuesdays.

And yeah, it just took off from there in terms of my running. 'cause I would see what, and I just blatantly mooched off of everyone's workouts. I'd find out what other people were doing, be like, great, I'll do that too. Why not? But yeah, that was like the big bang of my, like I'd always, I'd been running, I'd gotten more serious about it gradually over the years, but that was the moment when I was like, people do this.

Like they're having a lot of fun, but they're also serious because they really like to push themselves. And you just, the way you bond with people when everyone's doing hard things together and is, I think like second to none. And there's just, there's nothing better than seeing your friends do really awesome things.

So that's when that

Chris Detzel: something that Matt Campbell I've said this a lot of podcasts, so enough. Quote him on this particular, you tell, I like Matt Campbell and respect him a lot. 'cause I bring him up a lot. But maybe it's 'cause we're having this about slot. He said, look, I'm trying to run a, a.

A two 20 something. Because, and if I run a two 20 something, [00:40:00] a lot of other people are gonna run a two 20 something. It's kinda this under three hours, two fifties, two forties, whatever. You're now running with a group of really fast women. What? You're really fast already, and just, I can imagine as we go through the rest of this journey, is that you get better and better.

And some of it's probably because you're doing better workouts, you're doing faster workouts with these people, and you're learning a lot of things and your body's just getting faster.

Madeleine Rouse: I think people have gotten, oh, what is it? Is it the network of fact? There's some word for this, but shared knowledge is.

I think more, a lot more powerful than just whatever you can do on your own. And everybody gets smarter about the kinds of workouts they're doing or people are getting coaches and suddenly getting really good programs that other people can benefit from. And everyone gets smarter about fueling and shares knowledge and strategies there.

So like especially, and I'm not trying to sound like conceited or something, but when you get to the level of the people I'm lucky to run with a lot of people who are like sub elite or they're really fast. And when you get to that level, like you [00:41:00] may not necessarily make a super huge jump in your pr, it's about chipping away at things or about getting better on the margins.

And when you have other people who are all doing similar things, like everyone can benefit and it's really cool to see that happening.

Chris Detzel: One of the things I love about running is that you can get smarter about it. Especially some of these longer runs. And again, I'm not a marathon runner, I've heard this by several different people.

And I actually did this last week with my half marathon, so it's interesting. And I thought, you know what? People do this. So when you think of the race itself, so you train for the race, you do all of the right things, and then race day, there's a race day strategy. So thinking about, all right, mile one and two, I'm gonna do this 3, 4, 3 through eight, I'm gonna do this, nine through whatever.

I'm gonna do this, and then I'm gonna go do these paces at the end. And if you could do that, and you can strategically kinda, get better throughout the race or, whatever it is that you're trying to do is execution is key. Racing day. Have a plan and it's gonna work.

When you first run it, you're just trying to get through it, it's like

Madeleine Rouse: you're just trying to finish the

Chris Detzel: marathon. [00:42:00] Just happy

Madeleine Rouse: to be here.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. But then when you get, I assume when you get under three hours or whatever I'll give you an example. Like when I was running that race last week, I knew, 'cause I ran it two years ago, but I vividly remembered it.

For whatever reason, I knew if I can run the first two or three miles faster 'cause it's a downhill race. Yeah. I need to run that those three miles faster than I did. The last three miles or the first three miles I did the first time, right? Knowing that at the end of the race, I'm gonna slow down because I am hauling ass for one through tent.

So the first three miles I ran about 20 seconds faster each per mile, than I did the first mile first time. And then,

Madeleine Rouse: oh, I knew

Chris Detzel: when I was going downhill I was gonna have to push hard downhill. Although I was going really fast, I was hitting, two years ago I was hitting like.

6 15, 6 twenties, which was pretty fast. But I was like, what if I can hit faster than that? So I hit three, six oh eights, then 6 15, 6 twenties, and I thought, okay, this is great, but I knew the last three miles were gonna be the hardest and the slowest. And so [00:43:00] I, my strategy was backwards, but it was on purpose.

'cause I knew, because it hurts. I didn't think I was g you're struggling then and everything else. And my legs are already hurting mile five, because it's I'm going so fast that I've never gone that fast, before. But I knew I could because of the momentum that you get for downhills, but I knew so mile nine or 10 hits, I slow way down, I start hitting, I'm already hitting six 30 and then now I'm hitting seven tens.

I knew I was I was. Okay. And but you were prepared for it. I was prepared, but I was also like, this is gonna, I don't know what could happen. This could actually ruin my race too, but I went for it and did it and stick stuck with strategy. But that's when the marathon's a little different, because, you got a whole marathon.

But it's that kind of thinking that you get through it. It's I remember Mimi talking about, 20 or 19 or whatever it was, I can go way faster. I've gotta hit 10 seconds, 20 seconds faster than it's holy shit, you can do 20 seconds, 10 seconds faster the last six miles, whatever.

That's, [00:44:00] yeah. Yeah. Sorry to go on that, but I think that's no. Huge.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah. 'Cause have you ever got to that? Running is deceptively simple in that. What I was saying earlier, it's a large part of what I like about it is so simple, but it's not 'cause you have to have a plan and a strategy and then you have to practice all those things.

Like you can have all the best intentions in the world about your nutrition on the day off, but if you haven't been practicing it in your long runs, it's not gonna work out for you. Something that I continue a lesson I continue to learn over and over again. Like you have to come in with a plan and then practice the plan and then execute it on the day of.

Sometimes that, it's hard to do because a lot of the times that conflicts with what you wanna do as part of your normal training. I am really horrendous at practicing nutrition and I know that about myself and I have not made a whole lot of progress on it. So yeah you're gonna see diminishing returns in your races if you just keep not doing the things you're supposed to do.

Yeah, I think running is very Dee. It's deceptively simple and it becomes a lot about the mental strategies and then [00:45:00] about the little things that you can be doing because especially over the course of a marathon, like there's just so many variables and some of them you can control, A lot of them you can't.

So you just have to do your best to practice the things you can control so you can, you have a better shot of executing them effectively on the day.

Chris Detzel: Tell me a little bit more about the best race you've ever had and what, where was it? What was the time? Because I know it was pretty awesome.

Let's talk about that.

Madeleine Rouse: I honestly, the, is it really stupid just to say my PR race, but my, the Woodlands in the Woodlands Marathon in 20, yeah. Was that 2021? Yes. 2021. I think that was my PR race. And that's the one where I had just run that half where I met Maddie and connected with her, and then she told me that she and a bunch of other people were running the Woodlands.

And I remember her being like it's a really short it's a really short training block. Like it's a short cycle. It's right after the holidays until March, but I think we can pull it off. And I. I have such fond memories of that cycle because it was so much [00:46:00] about this little group of us who were all running together, all doing the same workouts, all meeting for long runs, and then we all ran it together and yeah, I, that was my favorite and then my best race ever.

'cause I prd, but I think I prd and it was wonderful 'cause I had done all of the things right up until that moment. You don't just show up on the line. Pull a PR out of your ass, like you gotta put in the time and the work. And I remember we all, a few of us all finished around the same time and it was just like that sense of shared accomplishment and pride in the group for all doing that was just something that I'll take with me.

And I try to remind myself of, I'll be honest that I've been in a really weird spot in my own personal running for a few years now. Like having the twins, being pregnant with the twins and having them Then my twins are three now. And the combo of them being young toddlers and then my oldest to being in the school year like that's a lot of schedule change at once for me.

And it's really thrown me for a loop. And I've been [00:47:00] in now like a few years of just not feeling like myself. Like I've been lucky in that I haven't been like seriously injured, I'll get little nickles here and there. And then again, like I'm just so much more tired than I used to be all the time.

That doesn't help. Makes sense. Yeah, I'll be honest that I've been in a really weird place running wise and not that motivated to race, but like seeing a few things keep me going and keep me modified. That's the word. English is hard. Those things are just watching the community grow and accomplish so many amazing things is, I have, I'll admit that I have some days where I see what other people are doing and I'll check Strava and I'll have to like forcibly take myself off Starbucks.

I'm like, why can they do those things that I can't? Those are my down moments and I try to view that as something I have to practice. That's negative self-talk that I have to practice banishing because that doesn't help. It doesn't help my running, it doesn't help in my daily life. It doesn't help my mental health.

None of that helps. And so I try to flip it and make it something that I can practice. Okay, I'm gonna practice taking those negative thoughts and banishing them and turning it into a positive. So [00:48:00] just watching the community do, and my running friends who I, I keep qualifying it as like my running friends, but I can just say friends, like they're just my friends.

Yeah. Who run friends really fast, watching my friends do awesome things. That kind of keeps me motivated. And then taking myself back to that. Today, which is now, my gosh, four and a half years ago, which is terrifying. More than four and a half years ago. Wow. Time passing. Crazy. Taking myself back to that day and knowing that if you put in the work and you're doing, you're running with people, you're following the program, like it will pay off and you may not see those results right away, but.

It will. So yeah, I just, so before I got

Chris Detzel: a couple questions, but before, what was your PR back at Woodlands?

Madeleine Rouse: That was like two 50 high. So that was like magical day. I truly don't know how I pulled that off. Actually no, I do know how I pulled that off. And I'm gonna say thank you so much, Farrell.

Because Ferrell, I was running with him until late in the second half, and it was a like little mini pack of Ferrell was there. Juan who runs in Fort Worth ended up linking up with Kieran and then [00:49:00] Maddie toward the end. But there was a little pack of us who all came down, and I just remember the whole first half, like Ferrell was just a metronome.

Like he was, he would shout out the paces, his coach self was coming out even in those early days, and we were just clicking off the miles together. And yeah I I would say that, I have no idea how I pulled it off, but I know exactly how I pulled it off. Like I had amazing people to run with not just on the day, but the whole, the community, the whole training cycle.

I love and I that you said, yeah. Sorry,

Chris Detzel: go ahead. No. Something you said earlier was when I was running, there was this magical moment where I get to run with these people, I get to hang out with them, train with them, and then we all went to race together and it was a magical day. Just that whole block, season ish was this magical thing.

It's hard to find that again, right? It's not the people, you still have the people. They, it wasn't do their things. You go do your things.

Madeleine Rouse: I don't wanna oversell it. I know it was not magical for everyone, everyone has their own experience. But it was my shining day.

And I do think I haven't taken a similar leap. 'cause my [00:50:00] marathon progression until then, it was like 3 25, 3 19, 2 50. Wild stuff. Insanity. Pretty awesome. Bananas. Like it shouldn't have been possible. And I think it didn't always serve me because, I dunno it

Chris Detzel: was possible though, because if you think about how you trained not properly at first ish, right?

Yeah. And you just did your own thing. No, totally. You have a lot of ability. The ability that you have is off the charts. Like you can already tell just you ran like a 3 25, your first marathon, it's ridiculous. And then a three, whatever. And I

Madeleine Rouse: think, I hope a lot of people can relate to like you, you finally put some training pieces together and you have that breakthrough.

Like it could be a marathon, it could be a 5K, it could be, people, we set goals for ourselves and then when you achieve them, you take that leap. I think that. Is its own mental hurdle after that. 'cause you can, you might start expecting that's gonna happen every time and then if you race and you don't pr it's hard to overcome.

Feeling like that was a disappointment. Yes. And I will be honest in that. Like I really struggle with that also. And I haven't had a similar leap like [00:51:00] that. And I think a lot of it is because like I haven't been doing the things that like I know will serve me better and some of that I can chalk up to just life circumstances.

My life looks a lot different now than it did four years ago. And so that's out, not outta my control 'cause I made all these choices, some of it is circumstantial and then some of it is just if you want to make those leaps and achieve those things, like there are tried and true things that every anyone can do no matter what.

Pace you run, find a group to run with, follow a program, make sure you're carving out time to recover. Like all of those things are just building blocks that maybe you can skip it for a race cycle or two and see some results, but like eventually, as I have learned the hard way many times, like it will catch up to you.

Yeah, just can't skip that basics.

Chris Detzel: Madeline is that life is life. You had two kids, twins. You had twins right after that, right? Or however long after that. So your life can change your life changed completely. Your body probably changed. You had two kids. At one time, and from my understanding and talking to the other Maddie and [00:52:00] some other women that, go through, whether it's postpartum or just life changes or, there's things that maybe, things that you went through that others don't go through or whatever, mentally and physically and everything else. I'm not saying that, to give excuses, that is the reality is that things like that happen and yes, I love that you're, pushing yourself, oh, let's be more positive here.

And I think that is exactly what it takes, is those kinds of thinking and, getting yourself back out there. But, my wife used to say this all the time, be kind to yourself, and yeah. If you're not kind to yourself, then what do you got? I think that, we're just human and we don't do this for a living.

Running is great. There's been some great blocks and times and community building friendships, and you still have those friendships and everything else. So I'm proud of you. I think you know what you've accomplished. Thank you. Great. So thank you.

Madeleine Rouse: I didn't know this was gonna turn into a therapy session, but I'm gonna hold onto that the whole rest of the day made my day.

No, I think it's true. I'm kidding.

Chris Detzel: We all get like that. No it's good. Yeah. So let's talk about what's next. What are you thinking, obviously all this stuff's kind of come up. What's [00:53:00] next for you? What are you hoping for?

Madeleine Rouse: I am trying to get back into racing more. I'm because I'm a head case in that if I put too much pressure on myself, like I will psych myself out.

But on the other hand, like I know you only get better at racing by doing it, by practicing those things, by getting it into a routine with it and making the race effort less scary. So I'm trying to. Figure out what will be next on the calendar. But in the meantime, I do wanna jump into more of those, some shorter distances because I think I said this like way earlier in the conversation, but my happy place is like a marathon effort, marathon pace workout.

Like I'm really not good at making myself run faster than that. So I need to force myself to jump into some five Ks or do a 10 K and even just make it part of a long run day and do a race and make that like part of a block in your long run. Yeah, I don't know. And like I said, alluded to before, I'm coming out of a weird.

Space with my own personal running. Hopefully there will be some exciting things to come. Maybe. I know, I feel like I didn't have a [00:54:00] great answer to that. 'cause right now I'm, it has been a challenging time. That's time answer where I was like, yeah, I was, I felt like I've, for a long time I was like running into a brick wall and like trying really hard, but not seeing the results that I wanted to see.

And then I had a realization where it's like. It is the true definition of insanity to keep doing all these things that I know aren't serving me, and then expect to see awesome results. So I think I'm like very slowly turning some sort of mental corner and rediscovering my like, motivation to race and achieve things again.

Been saying or joking for a while that I felt like I could retire. Like we said, we don't have to be doing this. No one's making us doing this. So I kept being like you know what? May, maybe I just, I had my PR back in 2021 and I'm done. I should make myself not caring. Stop caring. But I came outta that.

'cause, I do care a lot. We all care a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It's not helpful to pretend you don't care.

Chris Detzel: I think that's fine to me is that's what pushes us to get back out there and run is that mental state. Yeah. [00:55:00] But at the same time, to me it's I've got to the point to where, yeah, I still want a PR at 50 years old, I'm still PR in the half marathon, which is crazy to me.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah. That's awesome. Remember

Chris Detzel: a lot of half marathons.

Madeleine Rouse: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: And so one, there's help, but two is that, maybe there's a cycle or two that you just go through and say, Hey look, I just wanna get out there and do a marathon, or do a half marathon, or do a 5K, whatever the time is, do the best I can, whatever that is.

Not to say you shouldn't push yourself, but shouldn't compare it necessarily to where you were. But then maybe a year from now you say, okay, I've done this and this, I want to go for this. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think you just gotta break it down, and that's what I would do, because you're not gonna be the same self just in one training cycle.

You're just not, let's be realistic. Yeah. So what can I be, let's run a 3 25 or some, I don't know, whatever it is. Or let's wanna, one 30 or 1 35 half, or, okay, that was good and maybe do a little better or whatever. And then just be kind to yourself and just be realistic and backing the bricks or whatever the phrase

Madeleine Rouse: is.

Yeah. That's how

Chris Detzel: embrace Exactly. I think there's, you just gotta get [00:56:00] there.

Madeleine Rouse: I do think the way running, 'cause there is, the running boom right now and everyone's running and run. Clubs are big and I think it's very easy to get really caught up in the hoopla around races and expecting every race to be like the be all and end all.

You can just race, there's like thousands of races

Chris Detzel: you can go tomorrow, the next day,

Madeleine Rouse: yeah

Chris Detzel: one, it's okay, don't hit it. This one you get the next one, yeah,

Madeleine Rouse: exactly. There's always another

Chris Detzel: one's. Yeah. Look, I feel like the more times that I've said I wanna go do this time, and I never hit that time and the more times I've screw it, whatever I get I actually can pr because I'm a little bit less nervous.

I'm a little laid back and I'm just, mile three, I start, you know what? I feel good, I'm gonna be aggressive and see what I can do. I don't even care, and but once we put that pressure on ourselves, it's a little harder sometimes. 'cause then we have these unrealistic expectations anyways, I dunno.

I'm proud of you, like I think you're doing awesome. Alright, thanks for tuning into another talk. I'm Chris Detzel and Madeleine, thanks so much for [00:57:00] coming on. So make sure to subscribe to DFWRunningTalksubstack.com. So we'll see you soon. Take care.