31 Marathons and Counting: Farrell Hedrick's Journey from Beginner to Coach

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

Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel, and today we have special guest Farrell Hedrick. Farrell. How are you?

Farrell Hedrick: I'm doing great, Chris. Thanks for having me. Really excited to be here.

Chris Detzel: I'm excited to have you. And you told me that, you basically have one name, but your parents call you. One is feral and then what's the other?

Farrell Hedrick: Farrell I'll pronunciation. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. So for those out there, if Farrell, Pharrell Farrell doesn't matter.

Farrell Hedrick: That's right. Both are acceptable. I have no preference on my end.

Chris Detzel: Good. You were just telling me a story for the pre-show. Maybe start recording these pre-show.

It's fun. But was that you. Didn't meet, but we were both at Boston at the same time. We were standing next to each other through this run we were gonna do pre the marathon was, it didn't run a marathon. You did?

Farrell Hedrick: No. I actually didn't either. I was there spectating. Man, that's.

I attempted to spectate, but I had to fly back for work. [00:01:00] But I wanted to enjoy the weekend while I was there. Oh,

Chris Detzel: okay. Yeah, by the way, it was the best Boston Marathon weekend I've had, and I've been to many. I don't, I've never run Boston Marathon. My wife's done it several times and I just go with her.

But anyways, you mentioned that we were standing next to each other. You meant to say hi. I was talking to somebody. You were talking to somebody and we never even got to meet. And we were standing right next to each other and, but here we are today, so I'm excited.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah, likewise.

Chris Detzel: You have an impressive background in running.

You're a coach, you've run several marathons. You're really fast. I love that. And just recently I think you just took a new job out of kind of the corporate environment to fleet free feet to be the program director things. Is that right? Something like that? It's like

Farrell Hedrick: training programs.

Management

Chris Detzel: training program. Okay. We'll talk about all those things here in a minute. But first Farrell, I would love to get to know who you are, when did you start running, what kind of got you in the mindset of that kind of stuff.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah I'd say the start of my running journey is very similar to a lot of [00:02:00] individuals.

Maybe it might help to give some background on myself. Yeah. In terms of, let's do it how I got here. But I feel like I'm one of the few local-ish people to Dallas. I was born and raised in Richardson. At Campbell in 75. So I ended up going to Pierce. Logan Sherman was a few years older than me, so we didn't really overlap.

Always saw his name on the athletic halls with all of his accolades and cross country and track. Yeah, so that was a very well known name. Didn't actually run cross country or track, track my freshman year. Ended up quitting 'cause I didn't like being yelled at. And then I say all this because I went to LSU for my undergrad and I studied finance there.

As you can imagine with the football games, the tailgates, the Mardi Gras, like I put on quite a few pounds to be more specific, like about 40 or 50 or so. And then got into the business world and worked in finance and public accounting and added a little bit more weight. And one day I just kinda woke up and saw myself in the mirror and was just not happy with the way I felt.

What I saw. I was 22, 23 at the time thinking this should be [00:03:00] and how much were you overweight? I think at that point it's always hard to tell because like when you start. Recognizing those patterns and yeah, tracking all the nutrients and your weight loss, you're already a little cognizant coming down, but I think at most it was.

50, 55 pounds.

Chris Detzel: Okay. Quite a bit. Yeah.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah. And eventually I just had enough of it and didn't wanna sign up for a gym membership because it was the whole like New Year's resolutions, didn't wanna waste money going to a crowded gym, and I didn't also know what I was doing. So decided to lace some, a pair of shoes.

Yep. Decided to lace up a pair of shoes to try to run from one end of state, Thomas and uptown to the other. Couldn't make it even a half mile. So that's how it all started. Went from. 30 minutes to EL on the elliptical every day to a 5K, then half marathon, and then my first marathon in 2017, which was the Dallas Marathon, and then 31 marathons later, here we are.

Chris Detzel: Wow. So wait, you were in your twenties, early twenties when you realized, Hey look, [00:04:00] I'm overweight. I don't like how I'm feeling. And then you started doing some running and things like that. How old are you now? Sure. I'm

Farrell Hedrick: 34, so this, okay. I started like. When I look at my running like kind of history or timeline, probably started around.

2023. So about 11 years of running.

Chris Detzel: Okay, so you've been running about, you and I have been running somewhat similar amount of time but I'm 50. I ran cross country in high school and did some running and things like that, and then quit for 15, 20 years. I have a similar story. I remember, I'll just quickly tell it, but it's very similar.

So when I was 30, I was probably 25, 30 pounds overweight. I was like, man, my twin brother goes, dude, you need to exercise. Like he just said, I've got a twin brother that was doing all that, and I did. Yeah.

Farrell Hedrick: Was that tough like having a twin brother where it's like you see a reflection of what you could be or what you, or comparison to yourself where you're like, geez, like how's he doing all this?

But I. I'm not at that level.

Chris Detzel: I think at that time I was more focused on, I was going through a divorce and all this stuff, so I didn't really pay attention to him too much. Now, we talked a lot and he was more, [00:05:00] I wouldn't call it inspirational, but, focused, and I actually really liked that.

And so he was more of a there for me and stuff like that. But I'll tell you this. So I think that it was more positive than anything. And yeah, he was, I guess you could call it inspirational, because of that, and I think the other part was what you mentioned is you run a little bit for every day for five days straight.

I said every day I just wanna run a mile and I'll allow myself to walk every day except for day five. So day five, I would just wanna jog the whole mile. And then over time I kinda like you did 5K, 10 k. And then started running more and then just never stopped. But, and I think that a lot of people do something similar to what you and I did, and I think that's so interesting that there's so many stories that are kinda like that.

Yeah. So in 2017, you run your first marathon, but what was before that? Were you running, you were running five Ks, 10 Ks? Yeah.

Farrell Hedrick: I know I spoke through that a little too quickly, so my apologies there. That's, it's, there's just so much. When I look back and I actually pulled up a, I have a, like a little race log where I tracked like my half marathons and marathon times and where I've run different states and it's just [00:06:00] really cool to see where I've been in how long that journey has 'cause.

That could be a very long conversation. I'm happy to share it, but yeah, going back to

Chris Detzel: share a little bit of it.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah, I think it's good. Going back to before that first marathon really got into that running part after the elliptical to build the confidence of, okay, let me lose a little bit of weight, get some endurance, and really the focus was the endurance side.

Just being able to run a mile or two. I have this two mile route through uptown, same pattern or themes you had where it's just you build little by little and eventually there's this level of consistency you develop. Your endurance and your fitness catches up to it. So it was that first year running was KS initially, and then I switched roles to go from more of an accounting focused type role from internal audit to valuations within the same accounting firm.

And I mentioned this because. I had worked there for two years, already moved up to this senior associate role. Okay. And at that point, you're thinking as that individual in the typical hierarchy of public accounting, you wanna move up or look [00:07:00] laterally? So it was either you're working towards being a manager or you're looking at more corporate roles, like being a controller or a manager in accounting.

Yeah. But for me, I didn't. Want to pursue that path. So I took a step down, essentially going back to zero to take more of a finance like consulting type role and working in valuations. And that part was stressful for me. So it's almost like deja vu with starting public accounting again. I wasn't running as much as I'd like to.

I'd run. I went from running like almost every day to running four times a day or four times per week to three times. All of a sudden became two then slowly. So easy to do that. Exactly. So easy. And I wouldn't say I had the same look in the mirror type moment, and I wouldn't say I gained the weight back, but I can feel something wasn't quite there.

And this was a big catalyst because there was a coworker of mine, she had signed up for the Rock and Roll Chicago Half Marathon in 2016. And that to me was, that was the benchmark in my like running history where I say that's [00:08:00] when I became a runner. Yeah. And I say all that because not only wasn't the training aspect of it and I was just.

We can dive into the actual training part of it in a little bit, but when I went through the training for that, it was very much Googled something, just tried to add one more mile to the long run, just essentially raw dog, the training. But when we got to race day, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know there was gonna be eight stations.

I didn't know there was gonna be a crowd music. All these people in that adrenaline rush, just seeing the joy from, I think I did that one. All the other runners also seeing like the crowd being these are complete strangers, they,

Chris Detzel: yeah,

Farrell Hedrick: they were cheering me on and I just loved that energy and from that moment on I had plenty to obsess about and it became a new passion of mine and it was, it, what was your first time?

Chris Detzel: Half marathon time. I'm interested in that

Farrell Hedrick: first half marathon time was. One hour 48.

Chris Detzel: I think the goal, I ran a 1 47 on my first, so that's pretty awesome.

Farrell Hedrick: Pretty similar, yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. That's interesting. I haven't run I haven't run the times that you have though, looking at your times, but you spent a lot of time and effort [00:09:00] on some of that, so you get to that and you think, okay, this is it.

You're, you get this new job ish. You went backwards. Then you got into running a coworker kinda So what was next?

Farrell Hedrick: Funny enough, the normal progression would be to jump into the marathon. Maybe you, some of your guests would say the same thing, maybe more half take. That was the route I went, because after I finished that half, I actually had a fraternity brother training to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

Okay. To date ourselves a little bit. Back then, the fastest standard was a 3 0 5. Yeah. Which is a lot different than the 2 55 the 18 to 34 group. Males have to deal with, but Resing a little bit. I remember calling him because he had just run, no, he was still, he was doing a training run to get ready for a fall marathon.

I remember him telling me he was doing 20 miles and he did his 20 miles at the same pace. I did my half marathon,

Chris Detzel: and I was

Farrell Hedrick: just Florida. I called him, I was like, I explain the race and talking about how great a win. I asked him about his run and I, and like I said, I was just floor to the ground, like how can you run 20 miles [00:10:00] at the pace I just ran.

This half marathon. I did the math. If I doubled my halftime, it would've been what, a 3 36, I believe? Yeah. That's a far cry from a 3 0 5. So at that time, I couldn't even fathom doing a full marathon. So eventually just stuck with a half marathon. I said, Hey, this is the great distance. It's a great distance.

My

Chris Detzel: favorite, by the way, even today.

Farrell Hedrick: It's funny 'cause I feel like I fall in and out of the half marathon. I always thought it was my favorite distance, but I think I tend to be better at more of the longer distance runs. But I, it's always been a special place in my heart with my story. So I absolutely love the half marathon.

But yeah, I was 10 and half marathons later, I got down to, I wanna say 1 25 before. Okay. I didn't, I had already signed up for the Dallas Marathon, probably mid 20. 20. Yeah, I had just PRD in San Francisco. I ran a 1 44, I believe that's when I signed up for Dallas. But my half marathon [00:11:00] really progressed downwards to a 1 25.

Chris Detzel: I'm asked quite a bit from doing 2016 to 2017, 11 halves before you did a marathon. So you did a lot of halves in between that marathon sounds like?

Farrell Hedrick: Oh yeah. It was. It was, I wanna say it was about 10.

Chris Detzel: Ted,

Farrell Hedrick: whatever. Hey, when you love something you keep going after, right?

Chris Detzel: Hey, you notice that and you tell me if I'm like new runners and I love it, to some degree, but also kinda, it's be careful when new runners get into, whether it's marathon halves or whatever and look, I'm guilty, but.

Still do a lot of them, in a year. Oh, absolutely. I know this guy I talked to a while back see his face, I can't even remember his name, but he's from Spain. Anyways, he was like, yeah, I ran six marathons in my first year. I was like. Dude, that's way too many. Was it Carlos

Farrell Hedrick: by chance?

Chris Detzel: Carlos? Yeah, it was Carlos.

Farrell Hedrick: I'll say that sounds like something you would do. Although the irony is I'm sure he'd look at me and say you're probably crazier than I'm,

Chris Detzel: yeah, same. I'm sure we'll get into that. But I just think that, it's just be careful, because look, I get [00:12:00] it, you wanna do all these marathons and stuff like that and, injury will come your way if you don't watch it.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah. And I've been someone who's dealt with their fair share of injuries and still a little bit. Now fortunately it's nothing too bad, but yeah, I think I was poking with myself or thinking in my head a second ago as I was telling this story. It's if I were to coach myself back then, like if I were to go back in time, be my own coach I don't think I would coach myself like this was, there's no way like I could have dealt with oh, we're just keep signing up for half marathon.

It's like you need. Either some of these can't be races. Yeah. Or you just need a flat out break because eventually it'll, like you said, it'll, we will catch up because you simply cannot give an A level effort for that. Agreed. Any,

Chris Detzel: I do think that half marathons are a little bit more generous. Like you could do more half marathons throughout the year for sure.

Six or 10 half. I think that's, fair. But marathons, I don't know, six or seven. That's a lot. Maybe I'm wrong, but No,

Farrell Hedrick: absolutely. I think it's to each person's individual training, but [00:13:00] you're certainly like right with the half marathon, even when someone who's an experienced half marathoner and they haven't really made the jump to the marathon, or they seldom do the marathon.

What's nice about the half marathon is it's the so much less stress and it's less training required. Okay. Where you can go out and maybe say Hey, I'll do three, maybe four a race, half marathons in a year. Yeah. And you can stack up another six or however many, but they can just be training runs. Like I was a part of a pacing group with Beast and I've gone out and done so many cool half marathons with them.

And all of them were at like one 50 to two hours. Yeah, exactly. Maybe even as fast as one 40. It's but that's outta controlled. Pace relative to my ability. So in theory, I could do a half marathon every weekend if I really wanted. So I don't want to for obvious reasons. But that's the nice part about that distance is it becomes very, very,

Chris Detzel: so I agree. And let's go back a little bit from your first marathon. You talked to this guy you talked to him a little bit about pace and what'd he say and walk us through some of that and [00:14:00] then doing that marathon

Farrell Hedrick: or my marathon for

Chris Detzel: Yeah, for you. You remember you were talking to this guy about, Hey, there's no way I think I can run a marathon.

Especially at that pace, and maybe that's what kind of got you was. Okay. I'm gonna have to train more. I'm gonna sign up, but I'm gonna, I'm not sure I'm there yet to try to get to a Boston qualifier because at best you can run at 3 35 and that's seems pretty overwhelming.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah, I actually, I probably should have consulted him a little bit more about pace and strategy with a marathon.

Again, this is me being foolish and being new to the training, but I essentially applied the same approach I had with the half marathon where it's like I knew I had to get the long runs done because if I can't run close to. The marathon distance, I won't have a chance. That was my mentality. Now, I didn't run 26 miles as a training run leading up to it, but did the same logic where each long run I just built it up, starting with a half distance.

So next week would be 14. Next week would be 15, 16. Might take a break in the middle of there, just sprinkled in a few runs. [00:15:00] So that was working at the time. The other difficult part of 2017 was. At this point, I also switched careers. I went and made the leap from public accounting and worked in investment banking, which I was very happy with the move, especially at the time, like more money, more opportunities.

Yeah. And I wouldn't change anything in terms of hindsight, but it did really hamper training even worse than before. Hours were much longer, like a standard week was minimum 50, 60 hours weeks can go up as high as 80. Sometimes I'd be coming home at three or four in the morning, and I was just fitting in weekly runs when I could.

And then Saturday I would just knock out the long runs, but it was more than enough to get to the start line of my first marathon. So I say all this to yet again, have the same first marathon experience that so many people have had. Where they were. I don't know if under prepared is the right word. It certainly is, but I'm not, I don't wanna emphasize the training so much, but more of, I wasn't aware of how [00:16:00] hilly the Dallas Marathon was.

I wasn't aware of how much nutrition I need to take. I wasn't aware of the weather change. So that year, the race started just below 40, I wanna say it was like 38, 39, and it's an eight, 8:30 AM start. But sun's out. It's only gonna get warmer for there. I remember. One of the guys who had his phone and he checked the weather at like mile 16 or 17 and he was already reaching 60.

I'm sweating. I

Chris Detzel: don't think I, I don't think that's good for the mental toughness there.

Farrell Hedrick: No. At mile

Chris Detzel: 16, what's the weather like?

Farrell Hedrick: And to your point about pacing, what's funny about all of this is, so my half marathon PR was at 1 25 at that time. At the

Chris Detzel: time it's pretty good.

Farrell Hedrick: And I knew the Boston qualifying mark was 3 0 5.

Chris Detzel: So

Farrell Hedrick: I came outta the gate trying to run that pace. First three miles felt great. The next three miles I hit the 10 K.

Chris Detzel: People have done it, but you know what? It's rare.

Farrell Hedrick: And I, and also say this too, like my long runs, there's nothing [00:17:00] specific in my training that would've said a 3 0 5 was in the cards.

I wasn't running. 3 0 5 pace for any part of the long runs. My long runs were eight 30 to nine 30 minutes per mile. Just slugging it out, which again, it works, but if you have a time-based goal, that's not always going to necessarily work. So I say all this because as you can imagine, we cleared the half way more at 1 35.

So that puts me at a three 10 and I'm thinking in my head, we have a long ways to go like this is. Exactly the seed of doubt has been planted. It's growing. And I remember mile 18 ish, we're at the lake, actually, I'll back up a little bit. I can't remember what mile marker we dec descended into the lake, but I wanna say it was like mile 12

Chris Detzel: or so.

Farrell Hedrick: But I could see the lead marathon or the other marathoners coming back from the up Winstead Hill. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, what comes up has, or what goes down has to come up. You gotta go through that. But. I wasn't, I wouldn't necessarily, I felt [00:18:00] unraveled there. Where I did get unraveled was mile 18 across the lake, near the arboretum.

There's no like obstruction of sight, I dunno what the right terminology is, but you can see clear across the lake, downtown Dallas. And I know I have to get back there and it felt so far and going up Winstead, you really

Chris Detzel: killed yourself mentally. The whole race, it seems like it

Farrell Hedrick: was. And it was just getting warm.

All the negative thoughts were creeping in. And I say all this because it felt miserable and it felt awful, but at the same time, I had no choice. I told myself, we have to keep going. We signed up for this. We can keep moving the legs. I looked around, there's, yes, I was getting passed. But also there's other people fading too.

Like we're all in this together. We're gonna get through this. And we, when we rejoined the half marathoners. That's when it was, all right, we're in survival mode. We'll take it literally one mile at a time. So that's

Chris Detzel: exactly the way to do it.

Farrell Hedrick: We're at mile 22. We rejoined, we got company, now we have the crowd, mile 23.

What's a 5K left? That's pretty much the length of the Katy Trail. [00:19:00] Two miles left. I always contextualize the distance based on how far I am. Yeah, so two miles was my standard like beginner route, and then one mile was four laps on the track. Was it, and I crossed the line at 3 21, but I did it the hard way where I ran at 1 35 on the front.

Chris Detzel: It's not bad. That's a great time for your first marathon. Great time.

Farrell Hedrick: Absolutely. And by no means was I upset or disappointed. I was ecstatic and over the moon at that time. But like,

Chris Detzel: how do you not like. You would've been just fine. Even if you would've got slower than that, I think, because it's your first one and by that time you're like, I'm done.

I'm happy with it. Who cares, at that time. But wow, well done. You overcame a lot of, call it adversity, but a lot of negative thinking to get to positive thinking. Yeah. And I think the mental toughness is the key and the hard part about the marathon.

Yeah,

Farrell Hedrick: It's really funny because some of your other guests have mentioned there's such, there's so much power when it comes to. Perception and your thoughts. And Mimi was one, a really close friend of mine. I'm not even remotely close to even training with her, but she's always been such a great asset to the community and a great [00:20:00] friend with so much great advice.

And one of the things that I really appreciate from her that she's mentioned in some other kind of interviews or podcasts or discussions about training is it's okay to be in pain. Just sit there for. Give yourself a time limit. 30 seconds, one minute. Just keep it very short and just almost lie to yourself and say no, we got this.

Boost the stride up a little bit. Try to do whatever you can to stay positive because the minute you tell yourself, or you really set into that, those doubts, then that's when your body starts to break down. It says, okay, if this is cramp hurts, then another cramps gonna show up, and then now you're tired, now you're fatigued, and then all of a sudden you're just in shambles.

And the reality is it's not as bad as you think. That's why we train. That's why we do all the things we do to get here, to prepare ourselves. It's a matter of trusting that training that we did and making sure. We tell ourselves we can get there because so many other people tell us that too.

Chris Detzel: I love that.

And something that kind of makes me think of is I [00:21:00] like tell, like hearing these stories because people that are trying to become marathoners or wanna run more and all of that, and think, hey, this is gonna be really hard for me to even get to a marathon. And the reality is, it is gonna be really hard.

But it can be done. And we all struggle, especially in the beginning to, we all struggle, we keep it at that, but in the beginning it's even more of a struggle because we don't know how to fuel, we don't know how to train, we don't know how to do all of these things. And a lot of times when we first do things, we don't think about a coach.

We don't think about a race plan or we don't think about our nutrition. We don't do any of that 'cause we just don't know. So the things I always try to encourage people is. One is, that's why I liked having conversations like that with people like you. 'cause you struggled in the beginning.

You didn't just become a marathoner, you didn't just become a half marathon. You just had to start running and doing it. And slowly but surely get to the point to where you can get to it and then shows that you actually did it. You signed up for 5K the first time, then you signed [00:22:00] up for a 10 k, then half marathon, and you did it for several of those and you're like, you know what, I gotta do this marathon.

So I like the progression of. Where you've gone and a lot of other people, as we fast forward and we could talk about some other marathons if you want. But is that to where you are today? You've run from what I can look at, a 2 47 marathon, a 1 21 half marathon, and you've run what, 30 something? 31 marathons, I guess so far.

Farrell Hedrick: 31 marathons.

Chris Detzel: So point is like 31, 30 marathons later, 31 marathons later. You've now got better and things like that. And you've went through the training and you've probably tailored your training. Any you, do you wanna say anything about nutrition training and things like that and how that's progressed over time or, yeah.

Farrell Hedrick: Nutrition is something that's very interesting because I feel like that's an area. Can work on and improving in many different ways. But one of the biggest things for me is to always I tend to be on the side where I always tend to under perform, I don't know if the right that's the right word, but like under utilize nutrition [00:23:00] because I just don't like caring a lot of things.

That's something I need to get over, especially the summer months. And I do, I carry, I make sure I carry like a handheld water bottle. But one of the big things that even the slots I've been doing over the past couple of summers is having a cooler out on long runs or even parking at the track to have like cool rags and cool drinks.

And so my mentality on the nutrition side of things is to always at least have the tools you need in case you need them, even if it's a burden to carry all these gels. There's sometimes, for me, the biggest thing is just drinking. A lot of electrolytes, and when I say a lot of electrolytes, primarily like sodium, I'm a salty sweater, so I make sure I get a thousand milligrams of sodium right before my run.

And as I hydrate, I make sure there's, I have the high sodium packets, whether it's LM and T or even BPN or some of these other brands, just the little pouches. So when I refill my water bottle. It's not just with water, because that can be an issue sometimes. Yeah. With running yes, you need water, but you might actually [00:24:00] dilute yourself of nutrients because you're drinking so much water and you're not replacing it with the necessary sodium and other, another micronutrients.

And then on the gel side of things, like I said, it's just, even if it's a burden, at least having them in my car before a long run is helpful in case I forget. But also just making sure I carry two or three, even for a confident long run where I'd say, Hey, maybe 12 or 13 miles. I don't need one, but just to have one.

You never know when you're gonna have a bad day. Last week I had a. Rough outing for a 10 mile run. It was my first long run out in the summer heat like this in a while. So I was glad and fortunate to have a gel just to get some sort of flavor and kind of take my thought off the pain a little bit.

But again, those are all little things where it's trial and error. Someone's nutrition plan from somebody else's not gonna necessarily work for you. And there's different ways, but just like with running. You just gotta try something and see what works for you.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. The one thing I would. I recommend is during a training run is, that's your practice, right?

Like you're practicing [00:25:00] for the thumb race in general. Carry a couple of gels and say, tell yourself I've gotta take these two gels, or whatever it is, so that you can mile six, take a gel, mile 10 or 11, I don't know, whatever the miles are, take another gel, and just learn from that.

See how your body reacts, and even if you don't want to, because during the marathon you need some gels.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah, absolutely. You think about another way I've explained past half marathon, I'd

Chris Detzel: take a couple, try to, anyways,

Farrell Hedrick: yeah,

Chris Detzel: so

Farrell Hedrick: another way I've explained it in the past to like other people, especially those who aren't runners or new to running, is you think about how many calories you burn in a mile.

It can range anywhere from 80, 90, but let's just use a simple average, let's call it a hundred calories per mile, and in a marathons there's 26, so you're burning over 2000 calories. In that event what's the daily nutrition guide or calories? It's 2000. That's why people bonk it. You have these fuel stores for 2000.

Think about a car, right? You only have so much gas in the gas tank, and if you only have enough for 20 miles and you don't top up with fuel, [00:26:00] car's gonna run outta gas, so therefore your body's gonna run outta gas. Being cognizant and aware of what your personal nutritional needs are very important, and you're not.

Going to figure that out unless you try experiment, start practicing and being regimented and very intentional about, like you said, practicing as if practice your long runs as if it's race day. So yeah, if a marathon, you in a 20 mile run, compare that to the marathon where you take a gel every three miles.

So maybe you might need to carry five or six. And if you end up taking four, great. But at least you have the five or six with you to be prepared and practice.

Chris Detzel: Exactly. Like you can go to. Race, do a half marathon as a test as well. Test it on race day-ish, and do a half marathon and take, have a goal of taking two gels or something.

I don't know. Just practice during some of those things so that race day, you're as ready as you know how to be and can be, because I do think that's important for the marathon is like you said, you run out of your storage of. Fuel as we look like you. You recently, so I kinda wanna go back to, where you started [00:27:00] coaching, when did that happen and what inspired you to kinda think about that you're certified with the RRCA, all that kind of stuff, can you walk me through some of that?

Yeah.

Farrell Hedrick: It coincided with the Woodlands Marathon, which I would probably say, especially now without a doubt, is like by my breakthrough race. That's the shining star outta all. It's my pr. And because like also too, I know you've had some other guests like Matt Campbell, which he,

Chris Detzel: yeah,

Farrell Hedrick: he's, I think he shared his funny story about our experiences in that race, but it was such a great race to see so many DAOs area people perform.

Yeah, so well, especially at the two 50 mark. I was under two 50. Campbell's under two 50. I think Madeline Rouse, Maddie Steyer, they were at that two 50 or just under KE gear was there too. Yeah. And a lot of the people, but I say all this because that was. One of the best training cycles I had going into that race with the cool winter months.

But during all this, actually I had a friend that I was close with, he's a more of a triathlete, and he's at this point had done a [00:28:00] couple 70.3 Ironman events. Yeah. So very capable and very endurance focused person. But he never had done like a standalone, like half marathon before. And he's Hey, I want to let it rip.

And I've seen. At this point, I had just broken three hours too in the fall of 2020. So he saw that. He's Hey, I saw you qualify for Boston. He's followed my training. We're like I said, we're close friends. He's I know how hard you worked for that. It's is there any way you could help me or like gimme tips or even coach me.

At that point, I wasn't like a coach by any means. It's Hey, I can help give you advice. And he's what about like a training plan or kind of work with me week to week? So eventually we went from just having. Casual conversations on broader, like training structure, like what type of speed workouts you should do and things like that.

And I was just giving him like a weekly plan that I was building out of in Excel. And I was also I'll say too, I was also this time coach by VS as well. So he helped me break three and this training cycle going into the Woodlands. He was, coach Fox is a popular

Chris Detzel: dude around here. Yeah. So

Farrell Hedrick: He very [00:29:00] much is, and he provided a lot of great training.

I'll say like a lot of my philosophies and thought. Process when it comes to training. Similar stem from my experiences of being coached by him. So I applied a lot of the same logic and since I was training for the marathon, I wasn't necessarily giving him like this friend of mine a carbon copy of my plan.

'cause it just wouldn't make sense. But he, that was his first, like he said, stand up. Half marathon, he'd always run like two hours in a half marathon for 70.3. And in this guy's first half marathon he ran a 1 27. Yeah. And I was just like blown away. 'cause the whole time we were training, he's Hey, we'll pick a one 30 halftime as a stretch goal just to have like workouts as a benchmark.

And he was doing really well in terms of hitting a lot of the workouts. There were some long runs where they got tough. Yeah, but it's okay. Like this is one of those things where it's hey, your a goal is one 30, maybe a B goal is like 1 32 or something like that. And we just worked it down if it, and have that race strategy of, Hey, we'll see how it feels in three miles.

If it doesn't feel good, you can back it off. But if you're at mile six or seven just go for it. Just keep the legs turning and see what happens. [00:30:00] And yeah that to me was like a very eye-opening moment, not only just seeing. Not only a success from that first experience, but just seeing the genuine appreciation of not only my help and assistance, but also seeing how all these races that I've done, the 10 marathons, at this point it was probably like 20 or 30 half marathons.

Some went well, some didn't, and regardless of what the result is, I always walk away with some learning points and just to see like I have this wealth of knowledge from all the experience that I've had. It's like I wonder how many other people could. Benefit from even just me talking with them about how I did things or how I would've done things better.

Because if one person can take those stories away and not make the same mistakes that I have, then that's a victory in my head.

Chris Detzel: No, I think I remember talking to Matt Campbell and he has, let's say, a similar story, but somewhat similar about some guy I was asking him about, a training plan or whatever, and he is yeah, I could put something together, and took off from there for him.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah, and the other thing I'd add on that is it really. Channeled into like my [00:31:00] banking career where like I already had some spreadsheets set up with running. It's no, we're gonna make this like very sophisticated. So creating like a library of different training plans using different formulas to draw from those training plans based on people's,

Chris Detzel: I'm sure you did a

Farrell Hedrick: desired race building a pace table and then building like a, like essentially a one pager of here's your two week schedule, here's recommended paces, and created some macros and automation to feed into an email.

So I definitely went above and beyond from that perspective. So that really propelled myself into this whole like coaching journey.

Chris Detzel: I think that, these days you can just push that stuff into clot or something like that and it will give you all that. You just kind tell it and it builds it.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah, absolutely. The formula of that gives you whatever

Chris Detzel: you want.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Of course back then they didn't have it.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah. And there's apps now, like Final Search is what I'm use now, but of course I was like, I only had one or two people. I was like coaching at the time. I'm not gonna pay money for an app when I can create something.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Farrell Hedrick: From scratch on my own. Plus I have a little, I enjoyed it a little bit.

Chris Detzel: I think you learned a lot, right? I think that if you're actually doing it, you're probably learning, what the best [00:32:00] formula is and then the paces. I'm, I think you learn by doing in general. I think we all do.

Yeah.

Farrell Hedrick: Absolutely.

Chris Detzel: So how many people are you coaching now?

Farrell Hedrick: Currently I'm coaching eight athletes now. Okay. I think I've probably coached probably over 20 historically. I've lost a little bit of count there. I've tried to create like a, almost like a repository of past athletes. But yeah, I wouldn't say this is something that.

I was thinking I was gonna do full-time. It wasn't like a, an idea of hey, once I hit eight athletes, like it's enough money to be full-time necessarily. But I know I'm probably jumping the gun a little bit on where this conversation is going a bit. 'cause we alluded to it a little bit with my changing careers, but yeah.

Eight athletes right now and currently finding opportunities to open the door for more.

Chris Detzel: You only, from what I can tell, 50 bucks per. I don't know if that changes, but you'd have to have a lot of athletes to make a career out of that. Yeah. So at one time, I assume, but so let's do jump to that, because now you're quitting, a pretty good career, to [00:33:00] just to go into a training director over at Fleet Feed.

What is that and how did that happen? What, what's going on? Yeah. What's exciting though? I'm pretty pumped for you. I'd love to do something

Farrell Hedrick: like that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. No I'm very excited too and I really appreciate the support and I guess call it reception, if you will, from all my friends and the rest of the community bonds has reached out.

I've had lunch with him awesome. A couple times now, and he's been nothing but supportive and talked to Matt numerous times and he's, I'd say he's probably about my best friend in terms of, in a one-to-one relationship from a running side. We share a lot of. Ideas back and forth about growing the Dallas running community.

Not just the numbers, but like more of like, how do we improve it? How do we think about collaborating on events like this Mile race and yeah. All that fun stuff. And really the biggest thing for me was I was starting at Fleet Feet for a part-time position at as the same capacity as like a training program manager director.

I've been asked to help with this idea of creating a new like training program [00:34:00] and brand behind. All the Fleet Feet, Dallas stores, and it's really cool to be a part of something that's different. So a lot of my coaching structure now will morph into that. I'll still have like my whole like two run four website and brand so to speak.

Like it's gonna be effectively be like my own like kind of blogging website where I actually looking at that now I need to do a better job of staying abreast on my race recap. So that's effectively what it will be. Now it'll be like more of a launch page into this new like.

Training program at Fleet Feet, ~which is called the Performance Redefine or PR training, hence the play on the acronym there. But effectively what'll happen is like I'll be coaching new athletes through that program. So everything that's existing that I have on my website for coaching will essentially.~

~Kind of go away. I do have an existing like cohort of eight athletes that'll be morphed in that new program. But essentially what we're trying to create is like a new like membership type program where we can provide a lot of, not only just your typical coaching resources, whether it's one-to-one coaching or training plans, and trying to integrate it into final search.~

~Final search has a lot of great. Functions and capabilities from an app-based platform where athletes can see runs from a coach and get subscribed PACE workouts from them. But I think the one other big part of this new training program that we're really trying to drive is this idea that we need to, I don't know if, get back to the roots of running, if you will.~

~There's a lot of conversation about running communities and building community and. A lot of run clubs achieve that. ~

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Farrell Hedrick: We're not trying to take away from that by any means or try to build something new from a community perspective. Feel like community's almost like a very overused word at this point.

And again, there's no knock on any run clubs or run crews. Yeah. I'm a ma a, my main run crew o cliff running, they use that word all the time and they fostered a really great community. Yeah. But when I think about. My history and background with running and when we were talking about like how we got into running, it was like, Hey, I just I just wanted to lose weight.

I just wanted to, yeah, be [00:35:00] in better shape. Not once did we mention oh, I want to go qualify for Boston, or did I go want to go do a faster mile? None of it was performance based. Not

Chris Detzel: at first

Farrell Hedrick: and not at first. And I think there's a lot of untapped potential that people have that they don't realize because.

We just don't have those same opportunities in the Dallas Metro area. When I look at cities like Austin or like in Texas or even like Chicago, New York and Boston, yes. Those are major cities with a lot of running opportunities. But just going back to Austin real quick, it's like even they have a lot more racing opportunities.

They have the Zilker relays, they have tons of five Ks and 10 Ks. I have a friend down in Austin who leads a group called the Purple Dragons. They did a heat check mile where they just did loops around. A road near a park, they're about to do another one. And the way I look at, it's like why can't we have something cool like that?

And why can't we step have

Chris Detzel: somebody like you~ that builds that program, and ~

Farrell Hedrick: ~I also say it's gonna be more than just me. So I appreciate like the ~

Chris Detzel: ~somebody like you, right? Yeah. It's gonna be a team effort. You're, you've got probably the whole, a group of people that's gonna help you, I assume.~

But yeah,

Farrell Hedrick: ~and I think this is gonna be such a great opportunity position to not only just work directly with Fleet Feed and provide the benefit to ourselves and myself included, but~ also like it's the whole analogy or saying of a high tide races all boats. If we can figure out a way to create a program [00:36:00] that helps fuel performance and get people to push for their best and also create opportunities for other run clubs.

Other members of the community to join and really push ourselves in through the partnership of other brands and see and let these brands know that, hey, like Dallas isn't just your normal like running club city where everyone's out here. To do their social 5K. And again, nothing wrong with that. That's how a lot of people begin.

But there's a real opportunity for people who desire races, desire something cool, something fun, that's a little different than just going out there and doing a 5K. And again, fast is relative. We were talking about our mile times being a five 10. Yeah. The pros, they'll run a five 10 as part of a standard long run.

Connor Mans could probably do like a whole marathon five 10 and wake up the next day and do his real workout. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: exactly. If he really wanted to.

Farrell Hedrick: It's all relative. So it's always interesting to me when people say man, like I don't know if I can show up to a track night. I don't know if I'm as fast as you guys.

It's that's not the point. The point is. For you to get better every day. Yeah. For you to [00:37:00] see those stories of improvement. And I'm not unique in my own progression in terms of pace. Like I've listened to many episodes and so many people you've talked to share the same thing. Yeah. They start at one point, maybe they wanted to do the same thing, maybe they wanna lose weight, or maybe their first goal was to qualify for Boston.

And now you have someone like Jennifer Pope who's ran the Olympic trials and she didn't have that. Same like cross country track background. I mean she qualified, I mean she didn't start

Chris Detzel: running until COVID, right? Yeah. So it's crazy

Farrell Hedrick: and it's in her, it's so to see.

Chris Detzel: ~Yeah. So I wanna back up 'cause I wanna be clear on what kind of this vision is for the program.~

~'cause it sounds cool now, is it like a, 'cause you mentioned a lot of things that, you mentioned there's some training type stuff. Is there a place where you know, you get like groups together and you train. For certain distances, you mentioned races in there, so is there an opportunity that, fleet fee could create some different types of races, whether it's, some of the things that you're talking about.~

~What is it? You know what I mean? Yeah. If I were to come in and sign up for something, what am I signing up for? Does that make sense or Yeah. What's your vision right now? ~

Farrell Hedrick: ~Yeah, and I also wanna be clear on my end that there's still quite a few things that are in the works that we're working to.~

~Sure. To finalize a bit, so I'm trying not to overcommit myself and possibly get in trouble. Not that I'd be reprimanded by any means, but I definitely don't wanna commit to something that we weren't ready for. ~

Chris Detzel: ~This won't come out for another month or so, so you know, you might be already ready to, ~

Farrell Hedrick: ~I think our, I ideal plan is to have something launched by August.~

~It's right into the teeth of the, or not teeth, I should say, right at the beginning. That's the better phrase, right at the beginning of the Dallas Marathon training. Yeah. But what I can say about what this program is going to offer it's gonna offer one-to-one coaching. It's gonna offer. A platform for workouts, like our Wednesday night track nights.~

~It's gonna start at JJ Pierce, the location of the start. It might slightly move. We're potentially thinking about starting it from the actual fleet feed store in Richardson, which is about a half mile away, around the corner. Cool. Yeah, from the track. So we're still in the works, but the location of that.~

~It's gonna stay the same for the foreseeable future, to develop that kind of consistency and resource for people to train. But that's the foundation of it. It's this training program is going to create not only just a one-to-one coaching service, but also an opportunity for people to come train if they're part of this training program membership.~

~And. The challenge, I will say, to be very transparent, honest, right now, that we're really trying to focus in on honing in on how do we get people to not only sign up, but how do we make this an attractive program for not only just people who are coached by me? How do we get people who live in the area who want to.~

~Get some more, some form of training that doesn't require one-to-one coaching, and how does that look? And also too, how do we get brands to help support this as well? And I know I mentioned those things, but there's a few others. So trying to get these pieces around. To get prices finalized, get like a specific launch date, but effectively, to keep it simple, the training program, it's gonna be, the main foundation of it is gonna be this kind of weekly track night.~

~And eventually we'll have a supportive long run and figuring out that detail. But starting, going back to the walk, crawl, run analogy. Yeah. Or crawl, walk, run. I did that crawl yeah. In a weird, so from the crawling standpoint, we want to focus in on this track night building the traction there, getting people to show up.~

~Providing a service, providing a platform, like I said, for people to push themselves. And really that's the biggest thing, is getting people to come out and really find a way to open up that opportunity and that potential that they really have that they didn't have before. Because it's always been driven through like a community social run or Yeah, a club run of things like that.~

Chris Detzel: ~Is it specific distances? What's the kind of, or is there, Hey, we got a 5K kind of training. Okay. Half full, whatever. ~

Farrell Hedrick: ~No, that's a good question. From a one-to-one coaching perspective, yeah. For the track nights, I'll be providing those specific individualized workouts for those athletes. That way, like they get the tailored, just ~

Chris Detzel: ~whatever they're, wherever they're workout, whether they're training for ~

Farrell Hedrick: ~a 5K, whether they're training for a marathon, or whether they're doing a half marathon, they're gonna have their own specific track workouts.~

~What we'll do for the track nights is there'll be like a. A standard like training workout, if you will. Hey, if you're showing up and you're not, you don't have one-to-one coaching, whether it's coached by me or the other thing is like maybe you just live in the pierce area and you want to have that support from our community.~

~So you have your own coach, but you come out here and you do your own track workout. Yeah. Which is, that's cool. That's tracks more than, tracks more available. Or I should say. Track's open to those to do what they want. But if you're showing up and you don't have anything you're necessarily training for specifically, then it's I can give like a standard like here this week's track night, we'll be doing 300 meter repeats with a hundred meter wall press and based on your 5K equivalent time, here's your recommended paces.~

~And it's like on the board, I'll be out there cheering you on and there'll be a couple other volunteers, but we'll have like water electrolytes. And maybe some other goodies depending on what other brand deals we work with. ~

Chris Detzel: How many fleet feets are in DFW area?

Farrell Hedrick: I should know the exact answer.

My gut leans towards seven. Okay, so there's one in, so there's one in Fort Worth. I know there's one in McKinney, Briscoe, ano. And. That. Let's see, what else is there? Dallas? There's one on, there's press four, so probably six. Okay. I feel like I'm missing one. And are you support all

Chris Detzel: of those, is that, or is it just a specific area Right now,

Farrell Hedrick: technically it's for this, it's for the whole metroplex.

So all the stores. ~So we're starting the track night and you're never gonna win in this situation. There's not one track that's Central Dallas start somewhere. Dallas. Yeah. So we got, we picked Pierce because it's close to a store. Yeah. It's not far from the president, four store. It is a little bit of a stretch for some of the Frisco and McKinney stores, but we're thinking, we're trying to think outside of the fleet fee footprint a little bit and think about where are a lot of the runners in the Dallas-Fort Worth community.~

~And as we know, there's a lot in North Dallas, especially as you keep going northwards towards those suburbs like it in McKinney. ~

Chris Detzel: Wow, [00:38:00] that's exciting. That's, a lot to do. And, the positive I think, on something like that is you have the backing of the store. You'll have vendors that are very excited, and willing to help out and show up shoe kind of folks, all kinds of different things.

The marketing piece is, gonna be your opportunity and there's a lot of good marketing, I'm sure that Fleet Feet knows about and that they'll do well. And it'd be fun to watch to see where that goes. For sure.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I, and all the conversation that we're having now, it's who knows where this is gonna take us as not only just a brand, but also.

Whole city and metroplex. Even though this could start out as just like a weekly ~track night and ~training session, ~maybe this couldn't have evolved to where we can have our own like summer track series. That was something I actually really enjoyed in the past was Luke's when they had their summer track night series.~

Maybe we can do something similar to that or do something unique like what we're doing with the July 4th race, the 1776 yard race. It's. It's a fun race because it's not a mile, it's 0.009. Maybe we can do something fun and unique where, and it's not just Hey, we're gonna do a 5K on a track and just, but

Chris Detzel: it's basically a mile.

Yeah.

Farrell Hedrick: It's a little bit over a mile. But it's fun though. Yeah. Because

Chris Detzel: yeah,

Farrell Hedrick: I think it'll help contextualize how [00:39:00] far 0.009. Oh mile is, it's actually I think close to it's actually a good mile. 'cause I wanna say it's a little bit over 10 meters, maybe 20 meters, something like that.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

I, I saw that, but I wasn't thinking about it like that. But now you said it, I was like, oh yeah, that's true.

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah, because a mile 17. 1760 yards. So that's 16 more yards. If you think about, so

Chris Detzel: for those that don't know what Farrell's talking about, there's a 1.009 mile run race ish, against your own time on July 4th.

And I'm not sure that this episode will come out before then. Pretty sure it won't, but, 'cause it's only like a week away but Matt Campbell. So the slots, and then WRRC, I think Javier is a big part of it and stuff like that are sponsoring this race. Not, again, it's not a race per se, but it's a, you're time, they're gonna time you and all that stuff.

And what you do is you put in a time that you think you're gonna get, and whoever gets closest to their time that says that they're gonna get, I don't know if you'd win, get something or get, you get something or whatever, but it's gonna be [00:40:00] really cool. It's just different. And so that, that's what you're talking about, right?

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah, that's right. And there'll be a few prizes for the people with the closest time. And that's a huge emphasis on that. It's not necessarily about having the fastest time. It's, yeah. Who can get the closest to their guests, so a little different spin on it. So the prizes are a secret for now.

Honestly, I don't know them, so I couldn't even tell you if I did. But I know Matt's cooking up something in the works and I've got a few ideas and suggestions. So we will, we'll announce those as the race results come out.

Chris Detzel: So is there something like, there's so much to cover, during some of these, and you've got, you had so much to talk, I had so much to ask you and talk about because you went from this marathon all the way, or running all the way to.

Becoming a coach all the way now, working at Fleet Feet and changing careers and things like that. Did I miss anything that you wish I would've talked about or asked that you're just dying to tell us?

Farrell Hedrick: Yeah, I'd say I'm a huge fan of what you're doing. I think this is something that's been missed and I didn't wanna necessarily like just take this whole like, [00:41:00] remaining time period, didn't like necessarily glow you up.

But I think it's really cool what you're doing and having these conversations, especially with so many I know you've reached out to mostly your friends, but it just shows like how many cool stories there are and it's only gonna continue to grow. And I think very similar to that, where it's I feel like Dallas is a very hingem running city.

Yeah. And there's so many cool stories because there's just so many different groups and cities and stories and perspectives. That can be captured. And I think one of the things that I wish I had the opportunity to talk about more, 'cause I, again, I could be on here for three hours and talk about everything running the sun with running because I love it so much and I can tell you do too.

But I would say going back to that theme of like hidden stories, is me being part of the Oak Cliff run crew for the LA the better part. The last two years and just seeing what they've been able to achieve. And yes, there's been some amazing, I've seen that group up,

Chris Detzel: it looks like it's really growing like crazy.

Farrell Hedrick: It's massive. When I first started going to their runs back in. [00:42:00] Summer of 2023, I wanna say May. And there was 40 people there and it was a consistent 40 to 50 people. Yeah. Which I thought back then, and you have to remember like relative to COVID times when a lot of run clubs like struggled because we just couldn't meet due to the circumstances.

Of course you didn't have these consistent 40 to 50. Social run clubs like Yes. Fs and Pegasus. They were a big one and so was the co-op. They're a big one in the Dallas Run crew. Let's call 'em Staples, if you will. DRC, stuff like that. Someone, yeah. And d rrc. Yeah. And I'm, I know I'm missing a lot.

I'm not trying to be intentional about It's fine. Missing the bigger ones. But what I'm trying to emphasize, like there's four individuals. Who started this group in Oak Cliff, and they just started running together and eventually became six, became a dozen, and then now come on, run with me. Yeah.

Yeah. 40, 50 person and then all of a sudden in two years now, they're consistently getting. Hundreds of people out here. Like a down week is like 200 people.

Chris Detzel: Exactly. No I think it's, I think that, so I have this website called dfw running group.com [00:43:00] and on that website is one of the things is running groups in the area.

And I think I have 35 or 40 running groups and I know I missed them. Some of them, because that's one of the number one search terms in D Dallas Fort Worth is from a running standpoint is, the people are looking for groups to run with. And so I think that there can't be enough because people now are regionalized.

'cause they don't wanna drive so far away. Somebody from Frisco doesn't wanna drive to Dallas, or even somebody from Richardson doesn't necessarily wanna drive to Dallas and they wanna run. In Richardson area, or somewhere close, or Addison or whatever, and so can do that nowadays.

And you can have, use Facebook, you can use different things like that. And I think it, and what you guys are doing, what you're gonna be doing will be fun to watch, and see how you're doing there. I think you're right. Oh, cliff is. Kicking butt Yeah, but there wasn't anything there, right?

Oh, cliff. Yeah, exactly. Close to anything even in Dallas and so it was ripe to bring that in and they probably didn't even think it was gonna have hundreds of people, at first, now it's no,

Farrell Hedrick: absolutely not. And think opportunity's huge. Yeah. I think you've nailed it about hey, just people didn't [00:44:00] want to go all this way just to go run when you have a great.

Great area to run in and yeah, you have an amazing view of downtown as you run on the Jefferson Bridge going to the city. So why not take advantage of it and exactly, just not only just seeing the growth in the number of people, one thing I do want to add about them is I like their perspective on running, where it's not only just about building that kind of community and that crew of getting people to show up, but it's also how do we do things our way and have fun doing it.

Yeah. So the Dallas Marathon, they had a great cheer section out. I was there at mile seven as you made the turn onto to Lower Greenville, the Say less relay that they raised a ton of great money for mental health awareness in May where they ran from. There was a group of 12 people, Mimi and Craig were a part of it.

They did a team relay from Dallas to Austin and then recently. The, are you afraid of the dark? Four by one mile relay on, what was it, Friday the 13th and yeah. Matt Campbell's on the winning team. And that was a great way to bring that whole [00:45:00] community into Oak Cliff and show them, Hey, this is what we're here to offer and we can do these cool events.

Pretty cool. We don't need to do, nothing needs to be like super official or super fancy. You line up, lace it up, and you just go let it rip. Like it doesn't have to be this super complicated, like branding or making a deal with somebody or doing all these things and getting all these trinkets and amenities.

It's just no, just line up and race. Like just. Let's just go have fun with it.

Chris Detzel: I love it, man. I love it. Wow. It's a great, I love that you brought that up because I wouldn't have even asked, and Step running Crew is doing some really cool things and so maybe I'll talk to some of those guys.

It'd be fun. Farrell, this was amazing. Our hour already up. I generally have these about an hour or whatever, but we'll definitely see each other, I'm sure on July 4th, and certainly looking forward to kinda, I don't know if that I'm your speed, but still we could get a run in two together.

We're both in Dallas, so Richon area. I live in Lake Highlands, so it's not that far from each other. So

Farrell Hedrick: yeah, I might hop in for a pace or mile, so maybe I'll see you in. [00:46:00] One of those.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks everyone for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Tetzel. Please don't forget to rate and review us.

It's very important. Also, please go follow our newsletter at dfw DFW running talk.substack.com. I'm Chris Tetzel Farrell. Thanks again for coming. Yeah, thanks

Farrell Hedrick: Chris.