Boston Marathon Qualifier: How Andrew Smith Ran 2:53 at Houston

DFW Running Talk: Andrew Smith
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Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] All right. Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel, and today's special guest is Andrew Smith. Andrew, how's it going?

Andrew Smith: It's going so good.

Chris Detzel: Thanks

Andrew Smith: for

Chris Detzel: having me. You came up to me. Yeah, of course. The first time I met you was, I think it was at the Dallas Marathon. I was volunteering and of course I didn't know who you were, but you came up to me and was like, Chris, I listen to your podcast.

Oh. I was like, this is great. So I love it. When, and then you were telling me a little bit about your story around, I'm gonna run Houston Marathon, I'm gonna pr I'm gonna do hit under this time, and then I'm trying to go to Boston. And you're so excited about it and, you accomplished what you wanted.

And today we're gonna talk a little bit about your story, Andrew and a little bit about how you got into running. But then I wanna get into your most recent accomplishment and how you actually qualified for Bo the Boston Marathon for 2027. How does that sound?

Andrew Smith: Sounds great story.

I like

Chris Detzel: to tell. I can tell, and I know you're excited and I'm excited to to listen 'cause I don't know your story just slightly of what you [00:01:00] told me and let's get into it. How did did you do sports at all in, high school, college, anything like that?

Andrew Smith: Yeah, I played basketball in high school, so I was on a state championship winning team.

That did not mean I played much. I count all one minute and 39 seconds. I played in that state championship game, but that was the only game we were winning by 20 and I got to play in. So it wasn't Oh, so you won? We won and then I retired. I was on top and that was my junior year.

Chris Detzel: Perfect.

Andrew Smith: And senior year I went and played lacrosse.

I was captain of the lacrosse team in south Louisiana. I'm from Lafayette, Louisiana, part of Cajun country, and we had the Lafayette Lions lacrosse team. And I made I made a, the Louisiana All-Star team. So I was center midi if you know anything about lacrosse, I had never, nothing learned anything, but we made it up as we went.

And there's a lot of running. So I had a base of running and athleticism basketball, but actually I love bowling as well. So I played a lot of bowling. [00:02:00]

Chris Detzel: Did you ever

Andrew Smith: get a

Chris Detzel: 300

Andrew Smith: throughout childhood? So

Chris Detzel: did you ever get three.

Andrew Smith: 200 really was good. Okay. I made the second team all district in bowling.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Andrew Smith: In my senior year. And that meant I was basically the top 10 of averages in bowling. So super random, but no, then I, I think in my high school years it was intense training through basketball. That's where I first felt like I learned endurance. But. There's no running other than just conditioning.

It was just,

Chris Detzel: Basketball's kind of sprinting back and forth and potentially hurting your ankles and knees and things,

Andrew Smith: yeah. We just did a ton of suicides, ton of sprints. Yeah, exactly. So I was just used to that and I remember getting to a point where I'm so exhausted and I love it.

So there al there was always this I like running thing. Yeah. But I never really ran. I did do track in eighth grade, but I hated it actually. I was [00:03:00] so anxious before the first race. I didn't know how a track worked with, I actually peed at the starting line out of anxiety looking down on your pants, the ball line just look down.

And I'm like, dripping. And I'm like, Ugh, this is terrible. I hate this feeling. So I never raced ever again until that's an interesting

Chris Detzel: story.

Andrew Smith: Until I was 32 years old.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Andrew Smith: Which we can get to that story, but yeah,

Chris Detzel: we will

Andrew Smith: College, I went to Baylor. I started dating my now wife in high school, senior year of high school.

And then we dated four years long distance. I went to Baylor, she went to Mississippi College, miss Mississippi, and we got married, dated four years. Long distance, got married and moved to Dallas. If you wanna touch on my career, it was enterprise, rent a car was my first job. And I've just been in sales and relationships, jobs my whole career,

Chris Detzel: is that what you do now? Sales or,

Andrew Smith: yeah. So after the enterprise days, I sold basically air ticket travel group airfare. How do you get 50 people to Haiti? Did that through the [00:04:00] pandemic. And then I transitioned into a traditional residential real estate. Okay. Did that on a great team here in Richardson.

And then I got called into work for a buddy's high-end luxury custom home building company. Nice. Selling like a four to $7 million house. That was interesting. And then.

Chris Detzel: Gotta be good money.

Andrew Smith: It was good. Yeah, it actually was.

Chris Detzel: Have you

Andrew Smith: sold

Chris Detzel: a 4 million house?

Andrew Smith: Yeah. No, I did. I sold one, so that was cool. But it was, it's a process and

Chris Detzel: yeah,

Andrew Smith: the communication with the boss and all the heartache, there was a lot of communication problems, but, so I got laid off the fall, the summer of 2024 and yeah, then it was,

Chris Detzel: trust me, I've been through it twice these last couple of years.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Being laid off sucks, you figured it out. Yeah. I assume you figured it out and,

Andrew Smith: yeah. It led me to where I am today, which is a CPA firm. We do bookkeeping, we do taxes, and this fancy thing called fractional CFO Consulting. Yeah. So we help business owners make smarter data driven decisions, but business

Chris Detzel: develop.

[00:05:00] Yeah, there's a lot of those fractional CMOs, CFOs, et cetera. Yeah. That's a thing the last couple of years. Anyways, we're not here to talk about lap per se, but let's talk a little bit how, when did you start running? What was the kind of, you get outta college, you marry your wife from high school, so that's cool.

Did you run at all like in college or did you ever,

Andrew Smith: no, I played intramurals. That was about it, normal stuff. And then with enterprise, the first job for two years, I did not work work out. I only worked

Chris Detzel: Okay. Didn't

Andrew Smith: work at all. I actually counted I worked out six times in two years.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Andrew Smith: I just know that transition. That's,

Chris Detzel: that's strange to know that

Andrew Smith: Yeah, you

worked

Chris Detzel: out exactly six times in two years,

Andrew Smith: But I was on my feet all the all day, so I was like, okay, that counts. That's different. Yeah, I

Chris Detzel: think so.

Andrew Smith: It certainly kept me in shape. I never was ballooning in weight right then, but.

Basically from after that I was like, I want to grow my family and I want a job that would support that and I want to go to do midweek mid-morning stuff at church and just different things to have a better lifestyle. [00:06:00] Yeah. And that led me to the sort of family friendly company I was working with in the travel agency for churches and ministries.

But basically from there I started doing CrossFit. I went deep into the CrossFit world knowing I just need somebody and I need a people to show up for and I don't wanna have to think about it. So yeah, I started doing CrossFit for a

Chris Detzel: lot

Andrew Smith: of

Chris Detzel: people do that.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, I did CrossFit for eight years, but when the COVID hit, that travel agency laid off, half of my friends, half of our staff was laid off and budget decisions had to be made.

So I took out CrossFit. But that's

Chris Detzel: CrossFit's expensive.

Andrew Smith: Generally? Yes. Generally during COVID is when I first started just running, but there was no racing. There was nothing. I just started running, but I started feeling some leg pains there and I didn't take it too seriously. So when did I actually start running?

I actually say this story, it really, my marathon journey actually started winning a hot dog eating contest. So

Chris Detzel: you

Andrew Smith: won that July 4th, 2022. I won the [00:07:00] neighborhood hot dog eating contest. Okay. A lot of people ask how many hot dogs. It's not the point. We had a competition, not that many, the rules were changing.

It was five is the answer, but it was, it became a sprint to who can eat five first. But what that was it like

Chris Detzel: within a 92nd period or what was

Andrew Smith: the It was like a three and a half minute period. They set it up as five minutes, then they shortened it to four minutes. Anyway, I I would three minutes.

What was Joey Chestnut that day? Winning the competition. Yeah. I remember reading the rules and seeing you can't dip the hot dog buns in the water cups for more than three seconds. So I was like, strategy. Yeah, it soaked water as you can is gonna, it's gonna win. And so we didn't actually didn't have cups, we had water bottles.

So my first move was just dump the water bottles all over. The dogs get 'em super soggy. Okay. And I double barrel shotgun. Two of them. And the other people in the competition, there are only four of us. They just like, okay, this guy's crazy. I'm gonna put ketchup on my dog and just watch this guy. So

Chris Detzel: I'll put some mustard on mine and just eat one or two.

Andrew Smith: Now what the Hotdog eating contest won me [00:08:00] was a month of free ice cream. Oh,

Chris Detzel: good.

Andrew Smith: And it wasn't just any ice cream. It's the best ice cream in DFW. It's tongue in cheek ice cream. So tongue in cheek has three locations. Richardson, east Plano, Louisville. They're awesome. What is

Chris Detzel: this a commercial for?

Tongue in cheek. Come on.

Andrew Smith: I love, I am. Every single day I wake up and I send out tongue in Cheek's name of the day. A lot of people know me for this too. They send on social media eight names every day, and if it's your name that day you can go get free ice cream. Wow. So every day I look, I screenshot that and I text it to all these people saying, it's your name of the day.

Anyway, it's the best. Oh,

Chris Detzel: hey, I've never got a text. So now that you have my phone number

Andrew Smith: Exactly. Now that over whenever there's a Chris or a Christopher, it's gonna be your day.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Perfect.

Andrew Smith: But I didn't have both those names until right here.

Chris Detzel: Perfect.

Andrew Smith: So you're in luck now. Now I have your number.

Chris Detzel: Perfect.

Andrew Smith: Anyway, the month of free ice cream was every single day. And that coincided with the birth of our third child. We [00:09:00] have four now. They're 8, 6, 3, and one. But this is when the third child was born.

Chris Detzel: Wow.

Andrew Smith: And when you have a child that's born, you typically get a meal train, that means lots of meals delivered to you.

So that whole season was a lot of extra calories

Chris Detzel: for me. A lot of

Andrew Smith: food. Yeah. And that whole season led to numbers on the scale I had never seen before. And what? Just for me, I had never seen that number. I'm not Dustin, I'm not my coach. He saw way big numbers, but for me it was personal.

I was like, okay, I gotta do something.

Chris Detzel: What was the number? I'm always curious. You're not gonna tell

Andrew Smith: me. For me it was like 1 93.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Andrew Smith: So

Chris Detzel: yeah. Hey, now the same. I was at like close to one 70 and I was, and now I'm at 1 45. So that's, yeah.

Andrew Smith: So it's relative

Chris Detzel: for people. I'm shorter, I was getting a big belly, so I understand.

And I was what, 25, 30 pounds of weight,

Andrew Smith: yeah. Now I'm a healthy 1 75. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Perfect. But see, that's not healthy for me. 1 75. So your 1 75 is different.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, [00:10:00] exactly. I was like, it is a little relative, depending on height and just body weight mass and just a hundred

Chris Detzel: percent

Andrew Smith: body structure.

So anyway, all of that led me to just start running more, a little bit more like three times a week. So I decided just

saying,

Chris Detzel: Hey, I need to run more.

Andrew Smith: I'm gonna run. I was doing CrossFit, that was okay at that time, work-wise, I had gone back to CrossFit, but I didn't it just wasn't working for me. So it's like, all right, I'm just gonna run for one hour, three times a week.

So that was kinda like September, October, 2022. And then this guy named Rick Smith. This is another person you should have on the podcast, Rick Smith for multiple reasons you need to do it. But Rick Smith. Just on Facebook invited, Hey, anybody wanna run the Dallas half Marathon with me? It's this 1, 20 22.

This is five days before the race. And I was like let me think. I don't know. Lemme go see if I can run eight miles. If I can run eight miles, I think I can run 13. And so I do that successfully without pain. And so I sign up on three days notice. And back in that [00:11:00] year, that could still be done because it wasn't sold out three days before.

Now the story can't be written, but because it's selling out early and earlier each year's. But in 2022, we months before.

Chris Detzel: So

Andrew Smith: yeah, it was three days notice. And so I didn't even know Rick, he just was on staff at the church I used to go to.

And he used to be on staff, but he's, he I'll get to what he does and later on in the second marathon story, but basically I show up on the dart train.

We take the dart train down to downtown to run the marathon. We meet each other for the first time and I don't know anything. So you

Chris Detzel: never met the guy before? Like you never met him?

Andrew Smith: Not

Chris Detzel: personally. You saw a Facebook post or something or what?

Andrew Smith: You got it.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Andrew Smith: DMed them, and

Chris Detzel: you? And you were like running by yourself all this time?

Not

Andrew Smith: really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I didn't know anything had, not trained, but I had somewhat of a running base maybe. Okay. So the race starts, it's all hype and we shoot out at for us way too fast. He has a Garmin and he has an Apple watch and he's got all [00:12:00] these alarms saying you're going way too fast.

And Rick's a very fun runner. He's a hooper and a hollower, and a singer and a encourager. And he's telling everybody, we're going way too fast, but we shoot out at an eight 20 pace or something. That was way too fast for us. And six miles in, he keeps checking on me, how am I feeling? I'm like, I'm good.

I'm good. And then we take a donut hole from a bystander. And then, I had never done any training, right? And so the Gatorade, I was getting real sticky. Like I didn't know how to use the cups. I was getting real messed up. Also,

Chris Detzel: I, you don't have to use a cup, you just take a drink.

Andrew Smith: I it was blossy.

I'm trying to run. I didn't stop. I was like, I'm gonna run and drink. And it's, it was a mess. Okay. Everywhere.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, it happens.

Andrew Smith: So the other thing I forgot that I had even packed was I actually brought two grand layers, flaky biscuits. I put 'em in a Ziploc bag and they were in my pocket. I thought I might eat them.

Chris Detzel: It's weird.

Andrew Smith: Biscuits before the race, but I forgot they were there. [00:13:00] There's so much hype and I start running and it isn't until like mile seven, I remember that these giant bulging biscuits in my pro pocket are there.

Chris Detzel: So strange.

Andrew Smith: And Rick then land, then hands me a goo. I didn't know what a goo was.

It was birthday cake flavored. He said, you're gonna feel the second wind, you're gonna feel great. It's gonna hit you. And I was like, I don't feel it. I'm starting to feel sick. And I started slowing down for the first time and he sets off continues and he PRS and a 1 51 for him. Great. So good for him.

But then I'm like why do I still have these biscuits? I'm not feeling so great. And then the thought came to mind, you gotta risk it for the biscuits. I was like, okay. I guess that means I don't throw away the biscuits, whatever. They're in my pocket. So they're there and it's funny, I didn't just say

Chris Detzel: cash.

Andrew Smith: I

Chris Detzel: should eat them.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, I was just like, I'm just gonna keep 'em in my pocket. I couldn't take 'em out Anyway.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: Mile [00:14:00] 10, I'm in a bad place. I'm seeing stars, I'm feeling faint. Cold sweats. I am about to fall over. I'm like, I could fall over. And it was

Chris Detzel: like dehydration.

Andrew Smith: Any moment. Hundred percent.

I had no idea what I was doing. I went out too fast. I bonked. I didn't know that term at the time. Half marathon. This isn't even a fool, but

Chris Detzel: that's all right. Half's

Andrew Smith: a

Chris Detzel: lot for most people. Yeah. Even a half.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. But I was not prepared. Oh. And then the two hour pace guy comes up from behind me and I, if there was a goal, I was like, that's the guy I gotta beat.

And so for the last three miles it was just trying to, that'd be awesome. Stay ahead of him.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: And I do finish 15 seconds ahead of that guy.

Chris Detzel: Nice.

Andrew Smith: And then Rick was waiting for me, and I get there and I put my arm around him and I'm barely hanging on. And we go get all the finisher stuff. And then I was like, oh no, I forget my, I forgot my metal.

I gotta go back. And he said, dude, it's on your neck. So I [00:15:00] was out of it. And then, yeah, I did take the biscuits out and I did eat the biscuits. They were returned to Doy, but they were safe in the Ziploc bag. So it took me about 30 minutes to recover. But from there. About two weeks later, I was started realize, I was started thinking, what the heck does it take to run double that I can't fathom a marathon?

And that led me to start putting some pieces together to figure out how to run my first full marathon. Let's put a full training plan in place and figure out what does that look like. Meanwhile, my wife, go ahead.

Chris Detzel: No, go ahead. Your wife what?

Andrew Smith: Meanwhile, my wife, she's yeah, that half marathon, that was your birthday present.

Now you want to go do a full, okay, that's gonna be your next birthday present. That's your Christmas birth. And she's you can go do this, but you know I, you have to do it when I'm asleep. Everyone's asleep. And

Chris Detzel: yeah,

Andrew Smith: that was key. And continues to be key to training because my wife does yoga. Yeah, [00:16:00] she does yoga three or four times a week, but she does it all in the evening.

Yeah. So I have all the kids, I am feeding them dinner, starting the bedtime process. She goes six to seven on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then she goes at 8:30 AM on Saturday mornings. Okay. It's actually more than yoga. It's a strength and conditioning class, which is great for her. So that made

Chris Detzel: you guys have your kind of ways of doing things.

You have four kids and they're really young percent, so you have to kind of balance that. How does that work? She does that and you run in the mornings usually, or,

Andrew Smith: yeah, exactly. Yeah. So she sleeps in as best she can, but, kids wake her up for sure. But I'm trying to get all my running in on the weekdays between five and 7:00 AM and then on the weekends, just Saturday, usually it's five to 8:00 AM I need to be home by eight 15 so she can get to yoga.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Andrew Smith: that's the beauty of it. It works well. She's not competing for morning time. Yeah. But I serve her well in getting some nighttime out.

Chris Detzel: Love it. That's partnership set is the best,

Andrew Smith: yeah.

Chris Detzel: Works [00:17:00] both of them to do that stuff, so That's great.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. So the first training cycle, I found a marathon handbook.com, free Excel spreadsheet, and I started putting things together.

I found a few people saying, you just need to run three or four times a week. You should have a speed work day, a long run day.

Chris Detzel: Who were

Andrew Smith: you

Chris Detzel: talking to that says three or four times a week?

Andrew Smith: What's that?

Chris Detzel: Who were you talking to that said do it three or four times a week for a marathon.

Andrew Smith: Just running three or four times a week is all you need to do.

Who said

Chris Detzel: this? I

Andrew Smith: mean,

Chris Detzel: Who are you talking to? Know non-runners.

Andrew Smith: There was some people on Instagram.

Chris Detzel: Oh, okay.

Andrew Smith: That were selling coaching stuff. I didn't subscribe to any of it, but I heard what he was saying. I was like, I like that. I don't wanna go overboard. I just wanna finish.

Chris Detzel: I get that.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Three or four times. But I made up my own training plan and I loved playing basketball still. And I played on Wednesday mornings and Friday mornings sometimes. Okay. And then I also did every type [00:18:00] of random workout class you could get a free trial to. So I did Spanga. You ever heard of Spanga? Spanga is great.

Spanga is Spin Cycling Strength. Like a workout gym. Yeah. And then Yoga Spanga. Okay. So I did a three day trial there, a three day trial to F five, a three day trial, to Planet Fitness three day trial to the YMCA. Like anybody who had a free something, there's

Chris Detzel: a tryout,

Andrew Smith: a thing called Class Pass that would give you a free month of a bunch of classes.

So I went to a bar, I went to different things that absolutely had no business going to, but it was great because

Chris Detzel: you could do Orange Theory for one day. For free.

Andrew Smith: Yes. That I could do Orange Theory for a day. Exactly. Anyway, so that was all my cross training, but every week as I went up in mileage, it was a new PR for distance.

I've never been You're doing this all

Chris Detzel: by yourself?

Andrew Smith: Yeah, a hundred percent. I didn't really have anybody with me, but on my first long [00:19:00] run, which was only an eight mile run, this, that was a week one training plan. This is January, 2023, I ran into Dustin direction. Okay. So at the end of my run, I finished at Prairie Creek Elementary.

Chris Detzel: I thought it was Esan

Andrew Smith: Deeson.

Chris Detzel: No. Run.

Andrew Smith: I'll have to ask Dustin. I think it's ion, but

Chris Detzel: direction.

Andrew Smith: Hard to say.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Andrew Smith: Literally,

Chris Detzel: I dunno. I got it wrong. I said it like that the first time. Yeah, that's right. I was like, alright.

Andrew Smith: Okay. It could be I

Chris Detzel: dunno.

Andrew Smith: I dunno. We a lot of people just call him D Rock.

Right.

Chris Detzel: D Rock.

Andrew Smith: So anyway, I did not know him at all, but I planned to finish my run there and he happened to be there. I told my wife, Hey, pick me up from over here. That was the plan. Yeah. And the kids got to play on the playground and his kids were at the playground. And my wife and his wife, lo and behold, had their, our daughters on this exact same day.

So they were the same exact age, our firstborns. And they were part of a new mom ministry called Square one back in those days. So that's cool. They actually knew each other. But I went over to Dustin [00:20:00] because he was wearing a New York City marathon jacket. And he just was talking to these other few people about marathoning.

And I was like,

Chris Detzel: Hey,

Andrew Smith: I'm thinking about doing my first marathon. I just inserted myself into the conversation. Okay. And he invited me into the Canyon Creek Running Club. Okay. And that's just where we were. And he said, Hey, you gotta come to track Tuesdays and come. Come, do some speed work. That's important.

So that was great because I started getting a real community and I had no idea what I was getting into, but that was a key part of speed work and finding people that would absolutely get me faster. And so he was part of a another running, I get you

Chris Detzel: consistent and get you you lucked out in my opinion.

You get somebody like Dustin that you know, really knows what he's doing. I think that's awesome. And so you just learn from that,

Andrew Smith: absolutely. He added me on a group text that day. Yeah. And I had a bunch of people, bunch of dads that, and some way more than that, like intense [00:21:00] runners who were doing some crazy things.

And so I would do the warmup with them right when I would show up. It's like, all right, we're gonna do a 2, 2, 2 mile warmup. And I'd be puffing and puffing just trying to keep up with them on that. But then they would go do whatever pace they're doing and I'll do it at my pace. And then it was like, let's do cool down miles.

Okay, now I'm running with them again. And I would just berate them with all the questions I could about, okay, I'm learning about fueling. Yeah, I'm learning about shoes. Hey, what kind of shoes do you get? And just all the things that. I didn't know. I was like, all right, I don't have a watch. That's awesome.

Everyone has this Garmin thing. What is that? My whole first training cycle, I didn't have a watch. I didn't have anything. I literally bought a running belt and I had my phone and I pressed start on Strava. So that was it. I just ran by feel. I did not run by paces. I didn't know any paces at all.

And then. Again, every week, 15 miles. New PR for distance. 17 miles, 19 miles, 21 [00:22:00] miles. You

Chris Detzel: must speak.

Andrew Smith: Feeling pretty good. I remember thinking I'm about to go on a 23 mile run. I ran from watermark down the White Rock Creek Trail around White Rock Creek and back up to watermark.

That's 23 miles. Pretty cool. That's pretty cool. That was crazy in March, 2023. I was like, that is so far. And I did it. It was so hot. I was, it was burning hot. It was like 70 degrees, but I learned like 70 degrees is really hot because your body warms up about 20 degrees. So it felt like 90 to me. Yeah, but it wasn't, so you'll

Chris Detzel: know when it's

Andrew Smith: noisy.

Yeah. Just wait a few months and then it's really 90 and higher. Exactly. But the first marathon was Irving, April 1st, 2023. And. That was quite an experience because I had some issues. The first thing was I didn't start on time. I got stuck in a porta-potty line. Oh. The one I was feeding into was only like two porta-potties and there were other lines feeding into four and six.

And I [00:23:00] felt like pot committed to the line I had chosen, but by the time the race started, I'm like still th three people in line. I can't switch. What do I do? There were a lot of people still waiting anyway, so I had gotten to a place where it's I think maybe I could do a four hour marathon.

I think maybe I try and beat the predictions, the calculators where you can do a four 11 marathon. I was like, all so I'm gonna try and beat that, but I'm gonna go for four. See how it works. So I knew that pace. That's what I did for the half, 9 0 9 a mile. And problem was I lost all the pacers, right?

I started five minutes late, but I knew it is my chip time, right? I knew as soon as I start the race, that's my race that, but I lost the pacers. What do I do? So I have a choice. Do I just pace myself at a 9 0 9 or do I chase down the four hour pace guy

Chris Detzel: bad? I,

Andrew Smith: I decided to chase down the four hour pace guy, [00:24:00] like a rookie racer would.

So I set off at a eight 30 pace for 15 miles and catch him. I catch the four hour pace guy and the posse that he, so really you're

Chris Detzel: at about 3 55.

Andrew Smith: Exactly. I was like, Hey, if I finish with you, I'm gonna beat it. But I knew, and I told them at that point, when I caught them at mile 15, I'm not gonna be able to sustain this.

So I already knew I was cooked. I did stay with them for five miles.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Andrew Smith: And then 20?

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: Mile 2021. You look at my Strava bar chart, it's like slower and slower. And so

Chris Detzel: it happens.

Andrew Smith: I didn't cramp or anything, but my hips needed a break. Yeah. So I stretched five times, but I didn't like.

Kill myself. I had figured out fueling a little bit. I started with crank sport egel, something that was marketed to me on Instagram, I'm sure. And it had electrolyte. You're like, pay

Chris Detzel: attention to Instagram, don't you?

Andrew Smith: It had apparently, once you get into [00:25:00] running, what are all your at? It's just running stuff and they had a good calculator saying if you're running. This distance and it's this temperature then, and you're, this body weight and stuff. You need this much electrolytes, this much water, and this much fuel. So that was all new to me, that whole experience. Yeah. So I knew I had seven of these crank sport e gels, taken plenty of carbs and it came with electrolytes.

And then I had bottle, I actually had a belt with water bottles and then I was still taking other stuff, but by the end of that race, I was just like, I can't, it was, I was it was so acidic I could not handle anything. So the last thing I had was a banana that actually was nice, my, like 23. But those miles were 10 minute miles and my mile 25 was like 11 minute mile.

So I started great. And then I just classically positively split and finished in 4 0 3, so that's not bad. Nine 17 a mile.

Chris Detzel: Your first marathon, you ran a, I [00:26:00] think my first marathon was. Three 3 39. So I ran a, my very first marathon did that. And then, but my second marathon, I ran it was like 70 degrees at the start and I thought I, I was running with the three 20 group thinking, you know what?

Screw, I'm just going for three 20. That was an mistake because,

Andrew Smith: it's hot.

Chris Detzel: It was hot. It was really hot. And so I started out at about a one 40 half and then my next half was about a 2 29, 2 19. So I hit four, three hours or 59 minutes my second, it's 'cause show like Yeah.

Andrew Smith: Race strategy matters.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. I was young and dumb and I didn't know and I think that you just made just rookie mistakes, but still ran a four hour and three minutes. It's not bad.

Andrew Smith: Absolutely. And that was the first marathon. Before I ran that I actually committed to my second marathon, so I wait. When was your first

Chris Detzel: marathon?

Irving. You ran? Irving

Andrew Smith: Marathon. This is Irving, April 1st, 2023. Got it. What was your

Chris Detzel: second one? [00:27:00]

Andrew Smith: The second one I signed up for in like February or March because Rick Smith, the guy who I ran the half with, he runs a nonprofit called Hope Story. Hope Story is a nonprofit that helps medical professionals diagnose a help families process, a diagnosis of Down Syndrome.

And instead of saying, oh, I'm so sorry oh yeah, your kid has Down Syndrome. No, it's a congratulations. You have a child, they're gonna have special needs here. Community. Here's support Message of Hope. Hope Story Partners with a lot of running charities. Really it's the, do the New York City Marathon as well as a bunch of Disney races.

Okay. Where people raise money for Hope story and they get you access to run the race. So I signed up for the New York City Marathon. Through Hope story and I actually started fundraising the week before my first marathon. 'cause it was in November. Knowing this is a long way off, but Hey, that's gonna be a marathon.[00:28:00]

I'm running marathon right now. I can talk about this and start getting donations and then I can raise more before. And that's exactly how I did it. So I actually, how much did

Chris Detzel: you have to get? What was the goal?

Andrew Smith: 3000. Is the Okay. Is the minimum. Yeah. But I raised 4,000 that week.

Chris Detzel: Great.

Andrew Smith: And then, oh wow. In the next four or five months, I raised four more thousand.

Okay. So I raised 8,000 total. I wrote letters. I was all about it. It was a fun experience. There were 20 of us on Team Hope Story and I loved that. Had 81 donors. I went all out for it. It was great. It was super fun to raise money for Rick for Hope Story. Great organization. Again. You gotta have 'em on the podcast.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, maybe

Andrew Smith: he a lot

Chris Detzel: of Rick Smiths out there, just like

Andrew Smith: Andrew Smith.

Chris Detzel: There's a lot of

Andrew Smith: Yes,

Chris Detzel: the Smith

Andrew Smith: thing. No relation. Yeah, just Smith and Rick in very common names, but no, he has his own crazy marathoning story and now he's so deep into it with Hope Story and running. He's exactly what Df w running talk is about.

So

Chris Detzel: what? That's [00:29:00] cool. And so you go to New York then?

Andrew Smith: Yeah, so I had my whole second training marathon cycle through the summer.

Chris Detzel: What does your wife think about this, by the way?

Andrew Smith: That one. She's goodness. So that one was, Hey, do we want to do this? This was more of a let's do this together and make it a 10 year anniversary trip.

And so that was like, great, new York's a great city. We had been there, but let's go see it and do the marathon. And so she was okay with it. No kids, right? We're gonna make a big trip of it. And so that was a lot of fun that's, yeah. We had four days in the city and then the marathon on Sunday flew back on Monday.

Chris Detzel: That's tough. Doing three days, four days of stuff and then going to the marathon.

Andrew Smith: But it's so much fun at the same time.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. That's

Andrew Smith: awesome. My, my parents did end up coming as well, so we got taken around by them, which was great. My dad is pushing 73 or 74 at that point. He wanted to take a taxi everywhere, so we didn't actually have to walk.

Like I'm [00:30:00] very used to New York City, 20,000 step days, and it was like a thousand step days in New York. This is nice. So we didn't have to walk too much because he wanted to not walk. He was about to have a foot surgery and he did right after the marathon. But anyway, he was, he could still walk. He just, anyway, he he's recently recovered from all that, and he is back to softball and basketball and golf.

He has his own.

Chris Detzel: That's great.

Andrew Smith: Living legend. Super

Chris Detzel: active.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, he's great. Maybe he runs

Chris Detzel: in the family,

Andrew Smith: he does. Yeah. He's got his own athleticism. He's 75 now and he is still hitting bombs like in golf. Perfect. In softball. Still likes to play basketball if he cans.

Chris Detzel: I hope to be like that, when I'm 75.

Andrew Smith: Absolutely. No, my dad's my hero, so he's great. So yeah, New York was fun. It was very hilly.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Andrew Smith: it's a tough one. And similarly to my first marathon, I did not start on time. So there's a whole, what's going on, man? There's a whole subway and a ferry and a bus to get to the Staten Island start, right? But [00:31:00] I, Rick Smith steered me wrong, he said, I give it an hour and a half.

No, you needed at least two and a half hours to do all of that. So my, it, the who whole New York City Marathon experience is wild because of the scale of it. There's 15 different starts really, because there's five waves, but three different start areas. And so there's 15 of them really. And. I was in wave three on blue side of the bridge.

But since I missed my time, which was like 10 20, I did not arrive until about 10 30. That meant I got to go to the front of wave four. So wave four for the first eight miles was amazing because I was faster than everyone else in the wave.

Chris Detzel: So you're passing a lot of people when you're feeling good,

Andrew Smith: there's nobody to pass.

It's just me. Oh,

Chris Detzel: you're at the front. Got

Andrew Smith: it. Exactly. Yeah. And a lot of other people that were late were with me, [00:32:00] so I found there was, it was so cool. 'cause it's so international. There was a bunch of French people, there was a Portugal guy. I actually ran with a guy from Brazil for the first 13 miles and we were just tracking, we were both thinking two 50 sorry, 3 50, 3 45,

Chris Detzel: 3

Andrew Smith: 40, we weren't exactly sure, but that was the range.

But this Brazilian guy, he was all doing his math in kilometers, but I, he was saying we're gonna do five kilometers per hour. And I knew that was around eight minutes a mile. And I was like that's a little faster than we need to go. But I was with him and we just did it and he had a lot of, we're just chatting in our marathon.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: And having fun with it.

Chris Detzel: That's cool.

Andrew Smith: It's still fun. Ava, so that's cool.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Andrew Smith: but we went out way too fast. That is reality of it. Of course. And what actually happened is all those three routes, those three starts, yeah. They merge at mile eight. And the problem with that is because we [00:33:00] started late and we were faster than all of wave three that we were running through, the one that started 30 minutes ahead of us.

Chris Detzel: Yep.

Andrew Smith: We were running through tens of thousands of people for the rest of the marathon. So in the New York City marathon, at the end of the race, it said you started in 26000th place. Yep. This tells me, I was like, oh, there's the only marathon that's told me what place I started in. That's pretty cool. And then I finished in about 10000th place.

So

Chris Detzel: passed a lot of people,

Andrew Smith: 16,000 people. Yeah. In about 16 miles. And that's what it felt like. I ran into so many people because the crowd, there's a million people along the route in New York. I am just squeezed and trying to go in and out. Everybody at my eight.

Chris Detzel: You probably weren't thinking about that though, were you?

Which you probably didn't understand how massive the crowd was. I'm

Andrew Smith: assume, I cognitively didn't know these numbers, that this is how many people would be there.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: But [00:34:00] experiencing it and the loudness of it was overwhelming. It really was. But at the same time, it was really cool. 'cause I got to see my wife at mile eight.

Wow. 16 and 25 and give her a hug every single time they would cycle through to get to the front of the barricades and say, is your runner coming? My runner's coming. I had my phone. Every race I've had my phone and I've had my AirPods. So I can communicate. Yeah, I can have calls. So we called, we talked.

That's cool. We can text if we really wanted to.

Chris Detzel: Man I'm focused. I don't, I would never talk on the phone while running it.

Andrew Smith: And that's been my thing. I dunno a ton of people who do, but I've always run with my phone, run with my AirPods, as Siri can announce texts to you and you can verbally reply.

Reply. Yeah. So sometimes I'm doing that. Yeah. But a phone call is even easier than that, right? Yeah, it's, you can, it's answer it from your watch and then

Chris Detzel: Sure.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. So it was a really great experience for her. It took her one subway down to mile eight, same [00:35:00] subway to up to mile 16. Yeah. Four avenues over to get to mile 25 in Central Park.

Anyway, it went really well over overall. I did end up cramping in a quad mile 25, but I could run through it and I finished in 3 48. I

Chris Detzel: mean, that's a huge PR

Andrew Smith: 8 48 a mile, and it's very hilly, right?

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: So after New York, it was like. I feel like I'm gonna ask for something again, Becca.

I really wanna know why Becca's, my wife's name.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Hopefully, somebody,

Andrew Smith: what could I do on a flat course, right? What if I did a flat course marathon? Like, how fast do you think I could go? I've never run this much. I'm in the best shape of my life. Feel like I've lost a lot of weight.

What could I do? And so Houston, January, 2024 was the third marathon. So this is just, eight months after my first marathon. Now are

Chris Detzel: you still running with Dustin and

Andrew Smith: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and I also did the Dallas half one year later. And no [00:36:00] training two hours one year later, Alice Half Marathon, I did it in 1 36.

Makes sense 24, more than almost two minutes per mile on a, yeah, but you've run

Chris Detzel: two marathons and you've really totally

Andrew Smith: different.

Chris Detzel: Made a huge, you went from 4 0 3 to three 40 something. 1 36 is really good, but I. I'm not, I'm, I wouldn't have been I wouldn't have been surprised.

It'd be like, great job, but you have been training a lot more and you're a lot, little bit smarter, especially for h and you've done lots of training for a marathon for. You've done 13 miles, 15 miles, 18 miles, so half marathon's only gonna get a lot faster.

Andrew Smith: Makes a lot of sense. And now at that point it was like, it's only a half, right?

Where before it was like, I don't know. I've never really run that

far

Chris Detzel: before. Yeah. Course before mindset, it's all about training. A lot of people will say things like, man, I could never do what you do. I was like one with that attitude. That's true. But two, it's a lot of training and if you start [00:37:00] training for it, then you can, if you really care to do it.

Not everybody wants to run a half marathon or a hundred miles or whatever it is that they're trying to do. You could even say Hey Andrew, how about a hundred miles? You'd be like, oh my God, I would never do that. But you could, if you just put your mind to it.

I'm not saying it's not hard. Because it's, but so was a marathon, so is all these things are hard, but you put your mind to it. You'll do it.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: You can do it.

Andrew Smith: And around this time that I was starting along marathons was the first time I ran into a few people in my neighborhood that were doing a hundred Ks, that were doing 62 mile races.

They're doing bandera. And they'd been doing it for years. And they started talking about how they had to fuel and eat PB and j while they're running. And I'm just like, run and eat. Like how do you even do that? So there was a fascination.

Chris Detzel: They have aid stations that have that stuff, right?

Andrew Smith: And so I didn't understand.

It's a lot easier. Yeah. It was just you, y'all are different animals going to run 60 plus miles at a time. That's crazy.

Chris Detzel: It's crazy.

Andrew Smith: And that's a whole nother culture. There's [00:38:00] road marathoners and then there's trail runners, and there's a whole bevy of social media fun.

Chris Detzel: But it all relate, it all intertwines.

Those trail runners are running on the road to get their, yeah, in Dallas, how many trails are there that you can just go to every day? Hardly ever. You can't do that. Maybe the weekends or whatever.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: But yeah it's a little bit different of a atmosphere. I love the trails. I think it's amazing.

Yeah. Like I haven't done 'em in a couple years, but even if you look at my trophy thing, I have 10 different trail things I've done in the past, and so I've done tons

Andrew Smith: of, I think I, I think once I get past my road marathon days, I will absolutely do a trail race or two, but we'll see No plans.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Alright, so you go to Houston and, did you do a little bit better? Were you more confident or what happened?

Andrew Smith: Yeah, so this between Dallas half and Houston full, that's when I first got dusted to coach me. So that was in just so you, he,

Chris Detzel: your coach.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. That six week period.

That's it. Only for that time. Is any time,

Chris Detzel: any, do you think,

Andrew Smith: did, is he any good as a coach? [00:39:00]

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Do you think, is it worth it?

Andrew Smith: Absolutely. Yeah. Dustin is amazing. He's run a 2 34 marathon and it doesn't

Chris Detzel: mean he is a good coach, he's just a good runner.

Andrew Smith: He does mean, a few things and he is great.

We'd all call him Coach Dustin. Like whenever we're at the track, like he's the loudest hype, encourager of all. Yeah. And that's one part of a coach. A lot of his coaching is virtual and he's just uploading plans, but it's still personalized. And so it's just, yeah, it helps.

And you can tell that he cares. And I'd say Dustin was always one of those people, whenever I was running more marathons, he was always saying dude, you're not even, you don't even know what the next chapter you could unlock. Yeah. Is. And so he was always believing that I could do more, that I had more potential.

He wasn't like just looking to sign me up as a coaching client. Like he was just a friend that was like, dude, you keep going. You're going to get a lot faster. You're gonna surprise yourself. And that was absolutely

Chris Detzel: true. And he's right. If you've [00:40:00] been doing this long enough, you've been running long enough, you've been watching a lot of people, I even, I can tell you, I don't do, look, Justin's great, I had him on the show and.

As a matter of fact, I'm sure if he listens to this, it's just one of the highest, and I'm I still to this day, he must just have a lot of friends and a lot of people that care and like him and very well respect it. So I under, I could see that, but he had the most doubt. He's had the most downloads out of anybody just in one show, and still that's cool. Holds it today. So the reason I say is because I was, I didn't, like, when I first interviewed him, I knew who he was and I talked to him slightly, but I didn't know how well respected he is as a person, as a coach, as a running, and he's very well liked. And so it, it's just an interesting thing.

But if you've done this long enough, and I have too, I can see somebody, if I see you and we run together, I see your talent.

It takes time from a marathon standpoint for your body to get into the shape that it really needs. To take [00:41:00] three or four years, to really get that, to start running at the level and then start training at the level. But then also the confidence. Confidence is the most important thing to, to a runner when, you know, if I saw you, yeah.

Andrew, you could do probably a two 40 marathon, or, I dunno, whatever, I'm making this up, but he has the ability to do a two 40, but he won't get there until he has the confidence himself. So if you're training at a, three hours you're probably not gonna hit at two 40, because you're thinking, I'm just, I need, I'm a three hour, or I gotta try to hit that three hours when really, maybe you could at that time hit a 2 55 or two, whatever, the point is like the confidence, all these training things are important, but I think as important as a coach, to me would be like seeing that full potential. It's gonna take patience because it's gotta push that for you. You gotta be patient, but you gotta do the work.

And if you do that at some point that confidence starts coming. And it sounds like some of that's come to, so I think I've [00:42:00] seen it a hundred times. Like I just know, the talent and but I can appreciate Dustin saying those and just being that kinda, I can see him do that too.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, it was just the mentality that it's a long-term thing. It's not,

Chris Detzel: yeah, it's

Andrew Smith: just a sprint. It's a marathon. It's,

Chris Detzel: Because any day a marathon you can screw up. You can just, I don't know, your stomach starts to hurt or you have to go to the bathroom three or four times or who knows, and you hit a four 20 because you know something happened, you blew up.

I dunno, whatever. But

Andrew Smith: yeah,

Chris Detzel: it can happen. That just happens at times.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Just having the long-term perspective of fitness and life, yeah. Dustin's gotten faster in some ways since he got 40, hit 40. And he didn't expect to get faster as a master. That's just what happened.

And then he is running his injury stuff and now he's rebuilding and trying to, so we go through seasons and it's gonna happen, but it's been fun to see what could happen as I've progressed. And yeah. Houston, let's see. The first marathon I started on time. Yay. [00:43:00]

Chris Detzel: Finally.

Andrew Smith: So it

Chris Detzel: pay off,

Andrew Smith: it paid off big time and I did not, every race I've set an A goal, a B goal, and a C goal.

A is always stretch. If it's my best possible day, weather's perfect and I go faster than I probably should. I maybe could do that. B goal, target eagle goal was three 30.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Andrew Smith: B goal was something like 3 35. Sea goal is I think I'm totally capable of this. This is Houston, it should be cold. Three 40, boom.

Man, that race was perfect. Cold weather in 2024. And man, just it I let it go and I finished in 3 29. Nice. Nice.

Chris Detzel: You hit a little bit of over a goal,

Andrew Smith: absolutely. I was like, whoa. I've never even been close to the A goal. I had an A goal for all the marathons and I never hit it. I always hit the be goal, but Houston was magical for me that first time.

Chris Detzel: Nice. Houston's a great course. I love it.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. And it [00:44:00] was very cathartic. It was like, we're now due with our fourth kid. Okay, so this marathoning season is over. I had these three marathons within a year and it's just so much emotion. So much. Yeah. That's just normally how you feel after a marathon, but it was also just oh, I'm gonna miss this.

This is be gonna be it. And basically that's gonna be it. Basically. Basically. Okay, this podcast

Chris Detzel: is over. Goodbye.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, for, I thought that would be it for a while. And I had no plans besides gonna have a kid in August. Yeah. We had just found out we were pregnant and then Becca didn't really want me to run a whole bunch more.

I was like, okay, I guess I'll just run a little bit on my own. And one thing I had started in my second training cycle was I tested my K every month. So I have actually three years of data, 27 out of 36 months. I've tested my 5K and to see where I started was around 22 and a half minutes.

Chris Detzel: It's pretty good.

Andrew Smith: And then by that point I'd gotten down to a 20 minute something, just under seven minute miles. And then during that [00:45:00] year of 2024, it was really tough in a lot of ways. Professionally, I already touched on that job change. We also had a big house claim. The straight line winds, 90 mile per hour blew too big of our two, two of our trees, all the branches on our house.

And it was more than just like a roof, it was structural damage. And that was a three month claim of redoing the house all in, job transition, all the things. Running was certainly an outlet for stuff I could do, but I was getting slower and slower 'cause I was not training.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Andrew Smith: of course.

Basically, I still tested the 5K and it got slower and slower, but we finished the house renovation the day before our fourth kid was born. We had the baby, he started sleeping. We're doing okay. I got a new job and I'm feeling that itch to start training again. And Becca lo and behold, green lights me for Houston again, 2025.

January, 2025. So it's October, let's start training [00:46:00] again. And I start running with everybody like I was, but I found a few other people in my neighborhood that were my speed. That was awesome. That's

Chris Detzel: pretty cool.

Andrew Smith: Michael Groves, he ran he was running very close to my speed and he had Matt Campbell as a coach.

Okay. So I would just kinda run with Michael Groves. And then we had another guy named Ray Ator. He's an ultra runner. He's run Yeah, I know

Chris Detzel: him.

Andrew Smith: I know him

Chris Detzel: well.

Andrew Smith: He's awesome. Yeah. So he and me and Michael, we would all run often like two, three times a week and I put together another training cycle. A training plan.

Actually, no, that's not true. I literally just followed what Michael did. So this was the first one. It's like a little wheels off, but it was very, camp was a good

Chris Detzel: coach, so Perfect.

Andrew Smith: Because Matt was coaching us. So it was, I freeloaded on his plan on basically that whole training cycle until I did the Dallas half for the third time.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: That was the sort of warmer day. But I did a 1 32 that, that December.

Chris Detzel: It's [00:47:00] progress.

Andrew Smith: Big progress. It was fine. It was progress but like Michael, he was like a 1 27, so he was, he did great.

Chris Detzel: That's really good.

Andrew Smith: But he had not yet run his first marathon. And during that kind of period between Dallas half and Houston full, I got Dustin to coach me again.

Okay. Michael was dealing with just for four

Chris Detzel: weeks or three weeks.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, that's six, that kind of six week period between Dallas half, six, Houston full. It's closer to six. Yeah. Okay. Michael was dealing with some Achilles stuff, which wasn't super fun, hard to see. And yeah, I needed Dustin to start coaching me again.

And one year later I started on time again, and this was a very chilly cold day, and this is the one where I remember

Chris Detzel: it was windy and really

Andrew Smith: cold, like twenties, like 20, 25 mile per hour winds. I did a full ski mask, and so this is the one where I felt like I stole the marathon. It looked very scary, but I had fun with it going into the winds, I had to go face down and it felt much better in the full ski mask versus when I'd go up.

It was [00:48:00] chilly. Yeah. But yeah, just that race went. Awesome again, and I had my a goal at three 15.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Andrew Smith: Three 20 was B goal. Yeah. And the seagull is just pr just do better than 3 29. And I again, beat the, A goal I did three 14, so that's, the three, what was it, the 3 29?

That's a 7 59 mile. This was a 7 25 mile. And I was like, dang, that's really good. That's fast, right? I just, I, my definition is fast.

Chris Detzel: Did you ever think okay, now I think I can get to Boston because Boston for you is what, a three, three hours? 3 0 5 or something like that? Three,

Andrew Smith: yeah. So three

Chris Detzel: hours.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

So I, in Boston's eyes was already 35 and now I am officially 35 and it's. It's based off of, what age are you for the Boston that you're qualifying for? So I was 35 and I am 35 now. And yes, for a 30 5-year-old male, it's a three hour standard. [00:49:00] And so after,

Chris Detzel: so really you need a 2 55 or under

Andrew Smith: Exactly.

Exactly. So in the next year, all of 2025, I didn't have a child that was being born. I had a stable job. I was way more conditioned. I could absolutely run 20 miles and be completely fine to serve my family

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Andrew Smith: Whereas in the first training cycles that it's tough. Really took a great endurance toll on me.

And I might be dead to the world and that didn't serve the family well. But now I fit it all well as best I could. Yeah. In that little five to seven window weekdays and eight, five to eight on Saturdays.

Chris Detzel: Look, man, I think you, you do what you have to do and look. Do some running and, families first, and especially when you got young kids, they're, you're gonna have to help, and that's just reality.

And your running's gonna suffer most likely, but that's okay. Yeah. 'cause you're still staying in shape and things like that and you're still accomplishing some goals if you didn't, at the end of the day, really none of us are professionals. We're doing this for our [00:50:00] health and we're doing it because we wanna get better.

But and it's okay. To stop. That's all I'm saying is Yeah I understand. I understand exactly what you're going with. I never had four kids, but I had two, and so Yeah.

Andrew Smith: But that's the story of 2024 of yeah, I needed to do less. It wasn't time to run 2025. Pretty

Yeah.

2020. I did, I had a three minute month training plan, and it absolutely improved me another 15 minutes, which was impressive. I was That's great. That was a good full effort, and I felt awesome with the result. Yeah. But 2025 was like, all right, I don't have any. Reason to stop. And so where in my first training cycle, I peaked one week at 35 miles.

Okay. My second training cycle, I peaked at 45 miles. My, let's say fourth training cycle. The one before that one, the one that I had just finished in January, 2020. Yeah. Five. I peaked at 55 miles. Okay. In just one or two weeks. That was it. That was the height of my training plan. [00:51:00] But in all of 2025, I decided I'm gonna make that peak of 40, 45 miles.

I'm gonna make that my baseline. Yeah. Now for the rest of the year. Every week, January on to December to January for this year, I averaged a minimum of 40 miles a week. Which felt like a lot, but also I was like, I want this to propel me to the 65 and above. And this summer I hired Dustin officially again for not just the six weeks between Dallas half and Houston full, but Hey, let's go from Boston.

Let's hit it. So I need to improve about 20 minutes.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Andrew Smith: but I think it's possible if I train all year. So I had that all year. Speed work long runs at least a two hour long run every week. And whether on vacation or not, I'm up early and I'm putting in the work. So this year the discipline just [00:52:00] looked next level.

Yeah. And I still did some cross training. I found this great community called f, a bunch of men that have a lot of fun. They meet at Lake Highland sometimes they that was good cross training and they had fun competitions, a lot of body weight stuff, but it's free and it's great outdoors. Yeah. And enjoyed that.

But the running thing really in the fall took over. And so I couldn't even do that. I put basketball to the side and I just realized let's go volume. And so all of October, November, December, maybe even September, it was 60 miles a week, just full on. There's still one rest day per week.

And Dustin was programming it all. It was really two days of speed work a week and three weeks out of the troll training plan I got into the seventies. I peaked at 76 miles one week.

Chris Detzel: Nice.

Andrew Smith: So again, just things I had never done before.

Chris Detzel: Averaging, I think when you hear miles

Andrew Smith: a day,

Chris Detzel: I think that, just to back up a little bit, because.

A lot of people that I've talked to, [00:53:00] especially those that get as fast as you are now and even faster than that, the key piece that I hear is the volume and people are doing 80 miles to 120 miles a week. Right?

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Peaking. And I'm not saying that's for everyone.

Andrew Smith: No.

Chris Detzel: There is something there about volume and there's something that, if anything, that you wanna do more of and that's volume.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do speed work, it's all important. But the more and most important thing, in my opinion, from what I've seen and heard, is the amount of miles that you're doing every single week. If you wanna make a bigger impact on that, marathon time. And I think.

It's exactly what you did, and it's

Andrew Smith: volume does matter. You just can't instantly go run 80 miles a week though when you're brand new. Of course. And so that's where it's really a long-term thing That's right. To even be able to do that. And so I would subscribe to what I did, which is like each training cycle don't go more than 10 more miles in a training cycle.

[00:54:00] Anybody, any coach is gonna say, don't go more than 10% more per week than you did the week before. But also like your body needs to get used to that load

Chris Detzel: that on screen,

Andrew Smith: each one,

Chris Detzel: each person's body is different. But at the same time, you're right. You don't go from, Hey, I need to all of a sudden go run 80 miles a week.

That's ridiculous.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: But nobody knows. When you first started running, you didn't know anything. Nothing. You knew zero. Yeah. So instead you run, if you ran 20 miles a week, you're thinking, holy cow, that's a lot.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: But it's not enough to run a marathon.

It's a good marathon, but you have to build up to the miles, this hundred

Andrew Smith: percent,

Chris Detzel: a hundred. Your body just takes time to do it. And then like for me, the most I can do is about 40 to 42 miles and my body starts breaking down. So I don't do marathons. I'll do, but. So you just allow your, you do what you can, and then what your body allows you.

I'm 50 I have to think about age too. It's a big thing. Alright, so alright. You got this big volume probably feeling pretty [00:55:00] confident.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, and I'd say it's actually the speed work beside the volume that gave me confidence because most, one of the first things that Dustin had me do of course, which I absolutely recommend, is a one hour all out.

How far, how fast can you go in one hour? Yeah. Now I did my test in July, so it was not cold, but it's perfect. My baseline lactate threshold tests on White Rock Lake. So it was as flat as it could be.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: Was 6 48 a mile. So I went eight point. 8.3 miles, I think in one hour. Yeah. And that basically said, okay, your threshold is 6 48 a mile.

That's how fast you can go. All speed work needs to be significantly faster than that. If you're going slower, you're not doing speed work that is steady, that is threshold. But, I'm doing the math. I'm like, okay, if I were to qualify for Boston, three hours plus a buffer, let's go at least five minutes.

That's a 2 55.

So I know three [00:56:00] hours is 6 52 a mile. That already sounded crazy, but six 40 is a 2 55. So I'm like, okay, I just need to do that about three hours worth because like my, that's as fast and as far as I can go. Sometimes you

Chris Detzel: overthink it,

Andrew Smith: but at the same time, it's real.

Like in July it's real,

Chris Detzel: but

Andrew Smith: six months ago, 6 48 a mile was as fast as I could go for an hour.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: But you start six months going to be expected, hopefully in some cooler weather to do the same pace for three hours.

Chris Detzel: Cooler

Andrew Smith: weather

Chris Detzel: helps a ton.

Andrew Smith: And I would say the cooler weather does help a ton, but also the speed work was low, high five minute miles.

Low six minute miles intervals at the, smaller intervals at the high fives and then one and two mile and three mile speed workouts. Yep. At the six tens and six 20. So I had so many miles of speed work at a six 20 pace, six 15 pace. And I'd [00:57:00] say the biggest change in my speed work this year was that the sloths literally would come to my neighborhood.

I don't think they did as much before 2025. And so that's

Chris Detzel: kind of a newer thing. But Dustin's out there, right? So

Andrew Smith: yeah, Dustin's a sloth and there's lots of sloths. And I'd say 2025 is also when the sloths became even friendlier. Opening up communities, friendlier, they allowed everyone to enter into those jerks conversation.

And it was always secretive where they were meeting and how they were meeting. And sometimes I would hear from Dustin in the Canyon Creek running club text like, Hey, the sloths are coming. And that would be fun. Oh, they're gonna go test their one mile time at the track. It's okay, let's go test our one mile time with the sloths.

Yeah. All right. My goal, don't get lapped by them. And I'm telling you, I barely didn't get lapped by them testing my one mile versus their one mile. Their one mile is for the fastest of them, it was like a four 40 [00:58:00] mile.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Smith: For me it was like a 5 32 for one fastest mile. It is that's really great.

Chris Detzel: That is five 50. And that was at that mile thing.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. Yeah. The 1776 thing.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: It was. Again, still chasing them, but really in, in 2025, them coming almost every week to my neighborhood really helped because you got, that's cool. Jeff Pells, you had Aaron Pearson, you got Eric Brittle, you got Maddie, Jennifer Pope.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: Paul Wells, all of these great. Eddie Mellow. You gotta talk with Eddie. There's so many great fast people that we're all showing up for each other and supporting each other and going really fast and doing it together. Like we hit some amazing five by one workouts, tunes, having fun. It just made it a great memorable workout every Tuesday.

Chris Detzel: I guess Aaron brought the tunes then

Andrew Smith: Aaron. Absolutely. Dj. There are levels. Aaron's a good minute per mile. Faster than me [00:59:00] almost. Yeah. Which means I, I would hang out with Maddie a little bit better. Okay. And Maddie would bring her tunes as well. So we would have multiple tage happening so that.

We could all party, we had a lot of, it's

Chris Detzel: only fair

Andrew Smith: team days. Yeah. And then every now and then I would get down for a big workout down to White Rock Lake and there were, there was one or two of them that, hey, they just finished CIM. Yeah. They all just prd. Yeah. What an awesome celebration of marathoning together.

You already had that story. That

Chris Detzel: was a great story. All these people,

Andrew Smith: I love that.

Chris Detzel: It was pretty cool. I interviewed a bunch of them

Andrew Smith: and the next week was awesome. I'm still training and they're I don't need to go as far as, as fast. Yeah. So these super fast slots are willing to come down to my levels and pace me on my long run and.

It was just an incredible workout where, yeah, I'm gonna show up. We're doing Andrew's workout. So it was just like this incredible show of support for me to have everybody around me, power

Chris Detzel: community

Andrew Smith: going my pace. [01:00:00] That was just like, this is so cool. This is awesome. Yeah, so it's, it was a beautiful thing this fall having the slots and eventually like, all right, I'm confident I prd on my half marathon at Dallas again.

This time I did 1 25 under 1 25, so

Chris Detzel: congratulations.

Andrew Smith: That was a, that's like a, that was awesome and it's

Chris Detzel: good validation and probably a lot of good confidence for the

Andrew Smith: Yeah. Marathon

Chris Detzel: going

Andrew Smith: in that 5K this year, that 5K test, I still did that every month and I got. Two minutes faster on my 5K this year.

So I got, a year ago, I was around six, sorry, I was around just under 20 minutes.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: And then January, sorry, December 13, 20, 25. I had some sloths, pasty, and I did it in 1736. Oh. So that's a five 40 a mile. Pays for a 5K. And it was just like,

Chris Detzel: super fast.

Andrew Smith: What, how did I get that fast? Like, how did this happen?

And so all the data points were pointing to I can do this. Yeah. And the [01:01:00] confidence was raising and so going into Houston 26, 26

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: Was like, anything's possible. I can absolutely do it and I'm confident I can do it.

Chris Detzel: What was your A goal

Andrew Smith: but it's a marathon. Yeah. The, A goal was 2 55. So I'm, I was confident with a three hour, but.

I still made it the SEA goal. I made the A goal 2 55 and I made the B goal 2 57. Like I

Chris Detzel: just what's your goal? Oh my gosh, I gotta get into Boston, because I would've been, I was thinking if it is. And really your a goal. This is just me thinking out loud. It should have been maybe,

Andrew Smith: yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. 2 52 or 2 53. Because a be goal is 2 55, so I get into Boston. Yeah. And C is, it's what? It's, I get three hours still pretty good.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, I think

Chris Detzel: pretty damn good actually, but still,

Andrew Smith: yeah. I'd say the A goal and be goal in this one, were the same. I never thought for a second, I'm only gonna end up at 2 57.

Yeah. This one felt [01:02:00] more like absolutely. Boston is the target. Absolutely. I can do it. But there was also the, just real I've not run 26.2 miles at a six 40 pace or better

Chris Detzel: still not as confident, but

Andrew Smith: yeah. So like a lot of confidence. 'cause all the training and all the speed work and all the PRS of timing, some prediction tools said I might be able to do it.

Yeah. But at the same time, it's a marathon and you should always show up humble to the marathon in that second half,

Chris Detzel: well be going over confident.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, you can't go in too cocky and I, I can tend to be a little arrogant. I can say that. So I want to come in humble.

So

Chris Detzel: far so good, brother.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. So anyway a little bit of unexpected chaos happened with just sickness.

I got strep sick nine days before the race, but thankfully got antibiotics. It took me no time, two days to get better. So one week before the race, I'm good. But then that's, our [01:03:00] 3-year-old got strep two days before the race, so the family. Did not get to come down to Houston. So they stayed back. But Michael Groves my like best training partner.

He had a hotel. His family was also not coming, so we got to go to sleep in a king bed together. Watch NFL playoff. There we went to dinner with Matt Campbell, his coach. Awesome. I got to pay him back for the free coaching I freeloaded on. And it was great. So we just had a good kind of celebration and race strategy and just bro talk.

It was awesome. So then the morning of, he had never done Houston, so I go see, coach Chris Strait in Houston, he was down there and some other runners do the gear drop and then we get in the corrals. I'm still adding music to my playlist. I'm I've realized, I realize this from bowling, my bowling days.

I realize that if I take something too seriously and don't have fun with it, I don't perform well. Bowling is very [01:04:00] much that bowling's a lot of fun. Yeah. If I took too seriously, I tried too hard and I performed poorly. Same thing with Marathon. So it's like I gotta have a party in my ears. I've gotta be having fun with it.

So I invited a lot of family to call me during the. So I took four phone calls during marathon, and then I had a lot of different people texting me. So in my marathon, that's so interesting. In January, I had over 140 texts and I didn't respond to every single one. But like my brother, he had an epic chat.

GPT prompted encouragement for me. So that was a lot of fun. I had some people sending scripture to me and I was flying, I was feeling great the whole time. I basically averaged a 6 36 mile kind of the whole time, one key strategy thing, right at the last minute, Michael Groves was looking at my Strava for the Houston I had done the last two years.

He's Hey, how long did it estimate the [01:05:00] race course was, it was always 26.4.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Andrew Smith: right? That all, there's always that discrepancy between, what does Strava say versus. What is a marathon? And so we did the math and it was about, hey, if you want to hit 2 55, you're actually gonna have to do that for 26.4 miles.

And that difference is about four seconds per mile. So instead of running at a six 40 pace as I should have, I just went ahead and decided, okay, I'm gonna run at a 6 36. Yep, that helped. That wasn't that smart aggressively too fast, but it absolutely paid off because I was on pace the whole time, headed towards three 2 53 when all of a sudden a little adversity, I cramp in my left hamstring majorly at mild 24 and a half.

I saw Ferrell there. Ferrell? Yep. He's great. I saw him three times on the course that day. Yeah. But I cramp right in [01:06:00] front of him. And anyway, I, it's a full on cramp. I cannot run and everything just comes to no, am I about to not finish? Is Boston about to be out of touch? So I'm, I start stretching and I start going again.

No I cannot continue. And so I stretch again and I start praying and I start running successfully in great fear that I'm gonna not make it. But I do. And I do run for those last 10 minutes fearfully and I finish in 2 53, 52.

Chris Detzel: Look at that.

Andrew Smith: So I got my vq likely,

Chris Detzel: most likely. You got the vq

Andrew Smith: likely. I see what happens.

Got a six minute, six minute, and eight second buffer. It could be okay. Penalizing.

I'm

Andrew Smith: saying

Chris Detzel: percent because I've seen it late. Five.

Andrew Smith: No, anything could happen. But I feel like with them penalizing the downhill races now I feel better about that.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, that's true. That's

Andrew Smith: true.

Chris Detzel: We'll see, I'll be interested to see Buffer should

Andrew Smith: go down, not, [01:07:00]

Chris Detzel: yeah,

Andrew Smith: more so

Chris Detzel: I don't know.

Andrew Smith: I like my six minute buffer. I feel good about

Chris Detzel: that. Yeah, I think it's great and I think that's a pretty good buffer. And look, we don't know anything but congratulations, man. That was really pretty awesome. You've got so before we go, is there anything that I didn't ask, which I don't feel like I asked that much, that I didn't ask that maybe you would wanna add in?

Anything that from a running standpoint?

Andrew Smith: No. I would just say the, the people that were texting me in those final miles, I couldn't verbal, I couldn't use a thumb text, but I could reply and they were praying for my cramps, they were praying for my finish. And it was great to have so many people celebrating that, that finish and see the time and achieve it all.

And it feels great to finally have just the relief of oh, I'm doing it. And my whole community group and I bet maybe some families are probably gonna come up to Boston 2027. So we're looking forward to that. That's really just gonna be a fun celebration of marathoning.

Chris Detzel: Well, Boston's amazing and you're gonna have a lot of fun, not [01:08:00] just running the race, but if you bring your family.

I don't know what you're planning on, you planning on bringing the whole entire family, or is that the

Andrew Smith: Unsure. Unsure. Yeah. We'll see.

Chris Detzel: But anyway, especially if your wife gets to go, you'll have an amazing time. She'll have an amazing time, other family and friends and, because it's just a great experience overall, so congrats.

It's really awesome. Is there, what's next this year? Since Boston's not for another year and a half for you.

Andrew Smith: I, I'm relieved to say I don't have to think about it. If I hadn't have qualified or think that I qualified, I know I'd be itching to find something else. Yeah, of

Chris Detzel: course.

But

Andrew Smith: I'm really enjoying for the first time in almost 15 months, not training hard. So I'm still running, but, I'm not doing anything time off. I don't wanna, yeah, I'm taking a little time off. I'm going back and doing F three, having fun. I'll probably show up back at basketball soon, I'm having fun with it.

And I know that I will train again in 2027 for Boston

Chris Detzel: Andrick. Congratulations. And what a great journey. You've done really well and it's taken you sounds like a few [01:09:00] years. 23, 24, three

Andrew Smith: years.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, three years. But, it's why they call it a journey and you've shown that you get better and better.

You get smarter and smarter. It takes work to do those things. And the, and you put in the work, the time, the effort, got a coach, all these things that make you know you successful. And so I have no doubt that, maybe this is just the beginning of kind of your journey. You just could be, think about it, like maybe there's more potential there.

I think there is, because you just now started six months ago, started running long, longer, and more. So if you wanna, if you start doing a little bit more of that, the opportunities there. I think, ah, man, what a great stories. Thanks everyone for tuning into another DFW Running Talk. Don't forget to go to DFW Running Talk dot.

Sub stack.com to subscribe to our newsletter. Andrew, thanks so much for coming. Really do appreciate it. Until next time, everybody take care.