Breaking 3: Insights from Two of Dallas' Top Marathon Runners with Brent Woodle and Javier Trilla

riverside_brent,_javier, chris _ dec 7, 2024 001_chris_detzel's stud (1)
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Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] Welcome to DFW running talk. I'm Chris Detzel. So let's get started.

All right. Welcome to DFW running talk. I'm Chris Detzel. And today we have a couple of special guests that I'm really excited to bring on today. We have Javier Trillia. Javier, how are you?

Javier Trilla: Good, Chris. How are you?

Chris Detzel: Doing well. Welcome back.

Javier Trilla: Thanks. Glad to be here.

Chris Detzel: You're actually the first person that did this podcast, so appreciate you coming back.

Javier Trilla: Yeah, it was a fun one the first time. Happy to do it again.

Chris Detzel: Great. And we also have Brent Whittle.

Brent Woodle: Brent, how are you? I'm doing good, Chris. Thanks for having me on. I saw your clips on Instagram with Javier and I'm glad to be asked to join.

Chris Detzel: I'm glad you said yes. It's funny because I sent you a message about a week ago.

Maybe, I don't know. And you did, I don't think you got it cause you just said you didn't. But I was like, yeah, maybe he just didn't see it or something. And my wife was like, yeah, maybe not. And then I reached out to Javier. Hey, you want to be on the podcast again? He goes, yeah. Then right then you reached out to me.

I was like how about we get brent on there, too [00:01:00] He goes. Hey, I know brent

Javier Trilla: make more fun people already know what i've talked about So why not have another one some fun banter?

Chris Detzel: You guys know each other, right?

Brent Woodle: Yeah, we run together quite a bit

Javier Trilla: brent has known me since I was a baby runner with long shorts

Brent Woodle: I did that too

Javier Trilla: Yeah, I passed

Brent Woodle: the White Rock running co op torch to Javier.

Did

Chris Detzel: you run it for a while, like the group or?

Brent Woodle: I didn't run it. I was one of the admins in the group for a period of three or four years. And Javier has taken it on, I think, for the last three years, four years.

Javier Trilla: Yeah, I've been helping out a good bit, more so in the past year or so.

Chris Detzel: We could talk a little bit about that and how important community is for runners.

You guys have this really big, it's White Rock running co op. That's what it's called, right? And so WRRC, it's really cool group. I've known about you guys for a long time and run with you a little bit. With as fast as you guys are, like, is I think about Javier you're running about what's your best marathon time?[00:02:00]

Javier Trilla: Marathon is a two 50 flat

Chris Detzel: two 50. And then Brent yours is two 28 Oh four.

Brent Woodle: Yeah. Two 28. It was originally an Oh four. They actually went back in and changed the time to an Oh. So I'm just one second away from the next minute.

Chris Detzel: Oh, I, the reason I asked that there was a reason for that is, is that, a lot of these running groups, a lot of times.

You can find, when I say fast, maybe it's like a 3. 20 marathon, 3. 30, 3, maybe a 3. 10, maybe. But, at the level that you both are at, it's going to be tough to find runners. There's some, there's some really fast runners in White Rock through the co op. But you're doing a lot of really fast stuff, it's going to be hard, doing a lot of stuff on your own.

Javier Trilla: Probably more for Brett than for me.

Brent Woodle: We've always had a good mix of paces, and in a group like the White Rock Running Co op, you end up with a lot of subgroups. And that's true of the newer training groups like Pegasus and the Sloths and so on.

You'll have bunches of runners [00:03:00] that are doing workouts around a similar pace that end up kind of splitting off and running together for some of the workouts. And I've always had A few people that I can run with at various club runs. There, there's still people out there in Dallas today. I don't actually get out and run group runs as often as I'd like, but there are a few names that I think I could run with on a Saturday long run.

Javier Trilla: Really? A lot of us like on the faster ish side. I think a lot of us can run our long runs together. Like we all run in that kind of like high six to mid low seven range for a lot of the steady state long run. So it's, That's not as bad. It's workouts to get a little bit harder. Like for me, I find myself in no man's land right now.

So I feel like the whole world is chasing two 35 right now. And I'm sitting here as two 50. Whereas a few years ago, that was like blazingly fast. Like when I came into the co op, I thought that would be the fastest thing ever. And now I just don't feel like that is anymore. I'm just, and finding myself in no man's land for that.

I'm like, I can run with the sloths to a point, but I can easily get [00:04:00] dropped in their warmup. So a little too fast with this old guy, I make it work where I can. A lot of times I'll go out and run like an extra mile before I meet with them. So I can get my old man legs going and then I can keep up with the youngins.

Chris Detzel: Man, I feel really old then, a bit, a big race is coming up here in Dallas. Anyways, it's called run Dallas. And both of you have run that. In the past, both the marathons, I'm sure, and then the half. And I think we had a slight conversation before and all three of us were running the half. I'm pacing the 150, but you guys are actually racing it, for now.

Javier, talk, talk a little bit about that. This is my first time actually racing the half. I've actually never done the full at Dallas.

Oh,

Javier Trilla: yeah, it's on my bucket list to do maybe one day, but I've been, I first shot at Dallas was actually the relay back in 2015 when I was first starting to get running, but I've either pasted or help friends run to a goal or something along those lines, but I've never gone out and raced it.

So I'm excited to actually get to do that this time. So it's been a bucket list thing to try to do, but it's been a fun cycle, but yeah, this is my first time going at it. But I probably run it. Four or five times now. And I, if I don't do the [00:05:00] Sunday events, I've done the Saturday events too.

I think 10k are fun too. They're good sub events. And I think it's cool that they've added that on over the years. It's they're really great courses too.

Chris Detzel: They have 30, 000 runners there last year, which is crazy. And they're going to have more this year. I it's insane. For the overall event, so 5k, 10k, half and so how about you?

Like you've, I know you've run the marathon before and I know you're tuning up, you said for Houston. So you've run in the half this year. Is that right?

Brent Woodle: Yeah, that's right. So the Dallas marathon, the full marathon has been the event that I have probably focused on the most. I think I've raced it five times.

I've always had a more ambitious goal than what I ended up running, including last year. I ran, I think, 230 last year for third place, and I wanted to go a little bit faster than that.

Chris Detzel: What was first place?

Brent Woodle: So Joseph Hale, he ran a 223 or so, and I was talking with him in the lead up, and I think he wanted to run a 225 [00:06:00] And he had run some excellent mileage, excellent workouts, and he just had a really breakthrough day on that day.

It's, for those who haven't run the full marathon, it's one of the more difficult courses that you can run. And so I look at a 2. 23 on that course as maybe a 2. 20 or getting close to an OTQ time on a faster course. But anyways, I am turning 40 in January, and This year I decided rather than focusing on Dallas, I would do the full marathon in Houston.

So I could compete as a master's runner. And so the Dallas marathon. I love it. Yeah. Have you run Houston before? I've paced Houston. I've raced the half before. I think I've only raced it one time. I've paced it one or two times.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, that's a

Brent Woodle: great.

Javier Trilla: And Brent, this has been your goal for a long time for your master's run.

I, you've been talking about this for probably three or four years now.

Brent Woodle: Yeah I circled it on the calendar knowing that, Houston is a good course to run a fast time knowing that I'd be trying to compete as a [00:07:00] master's and my birthday is on January 12th. That's a typical Houston race date as it turns out.

So my birthday is on a Sunday. Houston is actually the week after. So January 19th, but I'm glad it's the week after and not before.

Chris Detzel: Yeah that's awesome. You're going to be a master's runner. Congratulations. I've been a master's for nine years. Now and you get the Houston, that's going to be awesome.

I'll be watching that. I'm running the Austin. There's the one in Austin for, I don't know what it's called anymore. It used to be the 3M, whatever they're calling it now.

Javier Trilla: Yeah. It's the Austin International Marathon. I guess 3M pulled out like two months before the race or whatever. So it's wild.

Chris Detzel: No, we've known that this for a while.

Oh,

Javier Trilla: has it? Okay. Nevermind. Strike that statement from me, from the podcast.

Chris Detzel: My wife told me like eight months ago about that. So that's the only reason I know. When is that

Brent Woodle: race? I know it's always been a popular one for locals.

Chris Detzel: It's either the same week or a week after or something like that. I forget.

I might have signed up. I just, wherever we sign up and then we just go the week, [00:08:00] the Friday,

Javier Trilla: yeah, sometimes it's the same week. I think it might be like a Saturday race versus a Sunday race. They're real close together. I would have loved to run that this year, but I am going to be out of town.

Chris Detzel: No Houston or North Korean. It's just super fast. It's like Houston, but a little faster, so it's worth at least going to do the half if you ever decide to do that. So from a training standpoint, Javier, you're again, you're doing the half. I know you mentioned your. Slightly injured.

What's going on there? And then are you ready?

Javier Trilla: I have been dealing with probably like some mix of piriformis not bursitis or anything along those lines, but some hip rotator issue for two or three months now. It's just, it comes and goes. It's one of those things that, I just I can run through a lot.

I run through like pain level two, three. That doesn't really bother me usually, but. Today I was doing a track workout for one of my tune up workouts and about a mile and a half in I'm wincing in pain and my warm up buddy's are you okay? I'm like, absolutely not. And I eventually just had to shut it down and walk it in.

And the worst thing ever is [00:09:00] that walk of shame back to your car when you've Have to bail on a workout or bail on a run in general. I think it's only happened two or three times and it is the worst feeling in the world, but got looked at today, got some dry needling done. Shout out to Logan Schirmer for getting me in really fast today.

A lot of soft tissue work and I'm hoping to get in there for quickly,

yeah, I think it might be a perk of being a client for 10 years, but maybe, but he did a lot of work today. He beat me up pretty good, dry needled. And I'm hoping that that a little bit of rest and ice and some strength prehab work might might get me through it.

It's frustrating. I decided to take Dallas as my PR attempt for the half. I feel like I've been hanging on for dear life for a PR attempt already. Now, I feel like I'm hanging on for dear life to even get to the start line, but I'm going to, No matter what, if I get out there, I'm still gonna shoot the PR.

If I blow up, and it'll be what it is. That's racing.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, you what is your PR?

Javier Trilla: My PR is 121, 40 something. I ran that in Houston earlier this year.

Chris Detzel: The goal for this

Javier Trilla: year was to do like a 120, but we'll see how that [00:10:00] shakes out.

Chris Detzel: I hope you don't show up where I'm at.

Javier Trilla: If you catch me, I'm having a really bad day.

Brent Woodle: And I think that half course has the opportunity to be pretty fast. So you might surprise yourself.

Chris Detzel: I agree. Have you, so Brent your best hat, are you thinking of PR on a half or, cause I saw you running the half back November at the DRC half and you actually, One, I was trying to give you some alcohol, during one of the eight stations, but

Brent Woodle: Yeah, so the DRC half, that was a bad day for me.

I won't go too far into that. But I ended up with some sort of food poisoning or something, and I decided to race it anyways, and I feel like you did pretty well.

Chris Detzel: You won it,

Brent Woodle: so

Chris Detzel: that was good.

Brent Woodle: Yeah, that's a tough one, right? No one wants to hear the guy who did well in a race complain about it. It wasn't the most enjoyable experience, but I'm, I am glad to have won it.

So yeah, for the Dallas half, I didn't get to that earlier. I'm running the half as a tune up. It falls perfectly. I think it's [00:11:00] five weeks out from Houston. And my goal is to PR. I actually PR'ed Earlier this year, in my spring training cycle, I think I had 110. 23, sounds about right. Yeah. So if everything goes well I hope to get under one 10.

I know there's at least one other runner in the race who's hoping to run the same time. So hopefully we can get together.

Chris Detzel: Do you have some goals like of, cause you're almost at that elite level, right? Is it like a sub elite that you're at? Is there any, you said you're almost 40, so it's probably a little bit harder to get that, but certainly a masters, you could start winning a lot of those, I would think, or at least close.

Brent Woodle: Yeah, so I mostly look at it as if I can get opportunities to race in sub elite sections of bigger races, like New York City and Chicago both have that, Tokyo has that. Those are the things that I'm after. And then as a master's runner, I'll just [00:12:00] have to see if there's elite fields that I can get into.

The sub elite I guess benefits usually aren't that great. You don't get bottles on the course, but it is nice to be able to start at the front.

Chris Detzel: So that's all you get as a sub elite is, especially at New York and that's, that'd be cool. Instead of being way in the crowds and having to stand around and stuff.

Brent Woodle: Yeah. So speaking of Logan, the year that I, I ran sub elite in New York, I think it was 2019, it might've been 2017, but I showed up to the bus, to the sub elite section. And guess who was there? Logan Sherman. I guess we all know him. Yeah. And they honestly do it the best. They take the sub elites and the elites to the same facility.

It's an indoor track facility on long Island. It's split down the middle. So the sub elites are on one side and the elites are on the other. So if you want a bagel, you've got to like. Sneak over to the other side and grab it, it's nice and warm and they bust you right to the starting line.

So you get out and walk to the front and then you're off. [00:13:00]

Chris Detzel: Let's go back to run Dallas is so as you think about, it's a half marathon and a lot of times, when you think of fueling, is there a strategy that you use, are you thinking like. And Javier, you can go first, but and then are you thinking Hey, I've got to, I've got to run my fastest time because your goal is to run your fastest time ever.

And so if you have a specific kind of thinking around what you want to do for that, or is it just that just take a couple gels and I'm good to go.

Javier Trilla: And I've got a fueling strategy. I use Martin primarily for all my races. So I do the I typically follow their prescribed plans.

They have on their website. They have different plans for 10 K half marathon full. They prescribe like what you should do the night before, if you need anything the night before, what you do the morning of before the jet or before your race, and then an every for me, I do gels every 40 minutes based on their plan.

So I'll do something like the night before I'll load up with one of their drink mixes and in the morning of I'll take another one, which kind of gets me nice and hydrated to begin with. I'll take a gel before the start and probably, I mean for a race like Dallas, I'll only [00:14:00] need one gel right in the middle most likely.

Chris Detzel: No ritual of eating spaghetti or something before.

Javier Trilla: So I do have a ritual and Brent's seen me do it. It's basically have pizza and probably a glass of wine the night before. And sometimes I'll have a greasy burger for lunch, which Brent thinks is ridiculous. I was gonna say, the burger

Brent Woodle: is what I remembered.

Javier Trilla: I think the burger is more like Yeah. So Brent and I have done a couple trips together and primarily Indy really and the two times we've gone to the same bar and I've had a burger at that bar. So it probably looks like more of a ritual than it really is to Brent, but it isn't really the main ritual for every single race, including this turkey trout the other day was pizza the night before and then a glass of wine and kind of chill out and relax the race nerves.

Chris Detzel: How about you, Brent, as you think about you're doing a full marathon in January of Houston. Do you look you've been doing this for a long time, but obviously it's going to be a little different from a half to a full, but do you practice something beforehand or, what does yours look like?

Brent Woodle: Yeah. So I try to minimize the things I think about on race day [00:15:00] because my mind is just racing, thinking about the race. And so I actually have a plan written out on a note card and I've used the same note card for, I don't know, two or three years now. Yeah. And it starts the day before, I normally have a pretty high carb diet, but I will eat a little bit more for lunch the day before, probably like a chipotle burrito.

And then for dinner, nothing crazy. I don't need a large dinner. I don't want to feel heavy in the morning. One thing that's a little bit different for me on race morning, I almost never eat in the morning before I run. It feels bad for me to run with something in my stomach, even for workouts. But on race morning, I will wake up early, just have a plain bagel with jelly, more carbs.

I'll drink a Gatorade, and then I'll drink coffee. I always drink lots of coffee. And then I've got to get that down and finish drinking usually about 90 minutes before the race so that I can pee before the race. And what that. And then I'm set. So I'll do [00:16:00] the same thing for a half or a full.

The main difference is that in a full, I will also be taking just a ton of carbs during the race. And then a half, I might just have one gel. Okay. I think that's a big

Javier Trilla: part of it too is getting up really early before the race. I, for a long run, I might get up an hour before, but for a race, it's typically three hours.

So 830 race, I'm looking at a five, five 30 alarm. I just. It's just a lot easier to be more awake for races. It's a very different feeling than when I go out on a long run and he's seen me and I'm half asleep. I've already been awake for three hours and I can digest everything and have time to chill out and get those race nerves out of the way.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. So Brent you've raced a lot and, I'm sure you've had opportunities to sometimes win races, but also potentially, thinking you were going to win, there's this guy or person ahead of you, is there a story that you can think about over the last Three or four years around, almost wanting to race and then just what was going through.

I don't know if there's something there, but I know like Logan was telling me that he [00:17:00] thought back in 2017, right? He was in second place, but he thought he was in first for first 15 miles, and there's these people telling him that he was in first, but then somebody said, no, dude, you're in second at 15 miles

So he's oh my God. Yeah,

Brent Woodle: I can't think of a story exactly like that. The stories that I have are more like, I had two races where I was just blown up at mile 10. Once was in Boston, once was in Dallas. And frankly, I don't know exactly what went wrong on those days, but I've learned the lesson of just really being patient.

And so what I try to be is like the strongest person in the second half. So you know, whether good or bad, I don't have a lot of stories of people passing me in the second half of races unless it's been a really bad day and I'm just hoping to get it over with.

Chris Detzel: 10, that's rough, dude. Like usually it would be like 15, but 10.

Brent Woodle: Yeah. Through the whole race [00:18:00] or. Yeah. Obviously you look back on that and you'd say you probably went out too fast. A lot of the times I actually look back at the week of workouts that I did beforehand and just think, man I probably just overdid it. And I went into that race cooked and it's it's something I struggle with after 13 years of running.

I still have questions about the right way to peak for a race.

Chris Detzel: What do you run generally when you prepare for a marathon, like throughout the week? I know it varies, but if you're at the high point, what does that look? What does that look like?

Brent Woodle: So at the high point of training this season, I guess it's 110 to 120 miles per week.

Last season in the spring, I think it was a hundred, maybe just over a hundred. So it varies a little bit. Sometimes I work on more speed work, In the spring, it was more speed work this time. It's more volume and lactate threshold. And then I usually have a pretty sharp taper. So like a 10 or 12 day taper, three weeks out, I'm usually at full volume, [00:19:00] but I'm running hard workouts at three weeks out.

Chris Detzel: So there, yeah, that makes sense. That's a lot of volume. You do 110 miles, a hundred miles a week.

Javier Trilla: Not quite that high, but I'm also a high volume guy when I'm running the marathon. So I, for the marathon, I've peaked at, Just under 90. I picked it like 88 or 89 for my Boston 23 cycle.

That's the most I've ever run and the best I've ever felt. I felt like I could run all day. Like the volume, I love marathon training. Like I've been half, I keep telling myself that I'm going to stop specifically training for a half marathon over the summer for the past three years. And I keep doing it and I hate it so much because it's so much harder than the full speed.

Work is a lot more

Chris Detzel: speed.

Javier Trilla: It's just a lot more speed, a lot, like a lot more work at like lactate threshold and tempo. And then marathon pace is just something that you can get into and coast and comfortably for so long and I even miss like the 20, 22, 24 miles you can just run forever. My best fitness for a half marathon always comes in a full marathon cycle.

And I just, for the past year and a half, I've just not trained for a marathon. So it's been hard to get that level of volume in, but that's my [00:20:00] preferred state.

Chris Detzel: So any kind of same question that I asked Brent, any kind of, I don't know if it's stories, Thoughts around like during a race where you've got close to maybe winning or doing really well that you know I don't know if there's any kind of thoughts that might

Javier Trilla: yeah Come to your mind one of my very first times of racing for place.

I think I was celebration white rock And I knew that I was I think fifth at the time overall for the 10k And it was the very first time that I found myself like, like in a lead pack holding on actually racing all out and found myself like asking spectators, like, where am I, how far back is the guy behind me?

And finally, on that race is the first time that I've broken top three in a race. That was pretty exciting for me. And I will admit a totally embarrassing story that happened to me at Turkey Trot three days ago, or however long ago Turkey Trot was, I got beat by, so I was racing in a small pack. Another guy that was dressed like me, singlet, expert sense, yada, yada.

And then there was this other guy in the same little pack shirt off? I did not have my shirt off. Not in the moment.

Chris Detzel: [00:21:00] Okay.

Javier Trilla: I try not to race with my shirt off if I can avoid it. But I got beat by a guy with a damn turkey trot shirt on. And I am so embarrassed by that. And I don't know that I'm ever going to live that down.

But here we are. I'm going to just say that he forgot to pack a cold shirt from out of town. And that's the only shirt that he had to race in cold weather. That's what I'm going to go with because that's all I

Chris Detzel: got. So my first turkey trot was back in 1993.

Javier Trilla: Now you are. And.

Chris Detzel: I know. I just graduated high school and I thought, I want to go run the turkey trot.

And I, I always ran cross country and things, and never ran eight miles, though. It was raining, it was cold, it was all of that. There was back then there was 40, 000 people that were running it. I had no idea. I don't even know what how I started anyways It started raining like crazy Cold and then I was wearing the turkey trot shirt and I ran all the way in it I think I ran a 59 or 58 minutes, which was pretty good compared, you know Knowing that I never ran eight miles.

But anyways,

Javier Trilla: yeah, it's really good. That's what I just ran was 59 [00:22:00]

Chris Detzel: Whatever, dude, you really a 59 minutes

Javier Trilla: No, I'm sorry, wait, no, 49. What the hell am I talking about? Just mute me. See, I'm still frazzled by the damn cotton shirt thing. I was about

Chris Detzel: to say, there's no way.

49. 49. Anyways, so I ran this thing, got home, took off my shirt, got in the shower, and oh my god, the worst pain I've ever felt, on my chest. I was like, I couldn't believe it. That's never happened to me. It's because I wore that cotton shirt, you know So

Brent Woodle: I know that feeling very well that still comes up,

Chris Detzel: I don't take off my shirt much But if I take it off, you know that i'm hurting And I don't give a shit at the time.

Who cares? I have to take this thing off. Have you ever been in a situation where, you can feel it coming, so you're like holding your shirt away from the nipples, just trying to finish the run without more damage?

That's when I'll take it off. Look, there's all kinds of things you can do, and I do most of those things, but every now and then it just doesn't work, now, so hopefully the new shirts from your group, helps, so we'll see.

Javier Trilla: [00:23:00] We'll find out. We'll be here soon.

Chris Detzel: Any kind of like any hometown when you look at races, like run Dallas is a lot of fun for me, used to one of the big races for me and just a lot of fun, a lot of excitement was Caltown, although I've never PR there, did anything like that. As a matter of fact, in general, I think I've run it 10 times to half.

It's probably one of my worst because of the hills and just, I don't know why, but it's one, it's the most fun from a crowd standpoint, anything that might stand out, let's go to Brent since we just talked to Javier.

Brent Woodle: Yeah, I think of Dallas and Cowtown both as being great, big, medium races, medium city.

I guess Cowtown is maybe a medium sized city. Maybe you'd call it a big city. But the atmosphere at both of those races is second to none. Neither of them is an exceptionally fast course, but they're both events that I want to be at every year.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Brent Woodle: for sure. With Cowtown, I usually get a hotel and stay there.

And now that I've got We stay in the stockyards and my kids can see [00:24:00] me pass by. That's about the only time every year that they actually see me racing because it's easy for them to just walk out the hotel door and see me. Aside from that,

Chris Detzel: It's easy for the wife to bring him in, instead of, Okay, let's go to this place.

Brent Woodle: Yeah, exactly. My wife and I talked about it. It's tough if I'm not around to help. It's very difficult for her to move around a downtown area with two young kids. Hopefully that gets a little bit easier as they get older. Yeah, it will for sure. 1, 000%. So aside from the Cowtown, I think Javier and I probably have some of the same races that we focus on.

Dashdown Greenville is a big one. Form follows fitness. Five K is I know

Chris Detzel: Javier likes that one just cause he can drink a lot. Both of those races. So we like form follows fitness

Brent Woodle: because it has a great after party.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Five K's are the best for after parties. I don't know why, but they're the best.

There's this one called me casino. I forget what it's called, but it's yeah. Mambo miles. It is [00:25:00] the biggest part. It's only a 5k and it's the biggest party in the summertime and it sucks to even run the 5k it's just awesome. Like all the drinks you want and just party. It's pretty cool

Javier Trilla: Yeah, I think that's I think that's an eric linberg race thing it's post race parties that clyde warren are pretty big and they do form follows fitness also yeah, form follows fitness is one that I enjoy doing too and recently even frisco big stars Is a is one that's getting a pretty big Fast growing.

It's not in Dallas, it's a little bit further North, but it's it's gotten a big following and it's gotten fast like winning that races is a big one.

Brent Woodle: It's one of the most competitive races in the city. Top three, I would say.

Chris Detzel: And Brent, when you, there's a lot of fast five Ks out there.

Really fast. Do you guys go out there to try to, I think you both probably try to go out and winning knowing the competitiveness, is it realistic? It depends who's

Javier Trilla: not for me. Like for me, like I need Brent to win races that I'm at so that I can get masters when I can at this point.

Cause like my worst nightmare was Brent [00:26:00] turning 40 and like showing up to races and not winning. But no I'm not a, I'm not a, I can be a top 10 guy at a lot of these, medium ish type five Ks in the 17 minute range, but I'm not going to win it unless I'm beating up on a little You know, small town 5k.

Brent Woodle: Yeah. So I can win some of the less competitive races, like form follows fitness. I've won a couple of times. And then the raw October fest 5k is another one that I like. There's a guy named Richard Powell from Houston who always comes up and races that one. When it comes there's two faster ones, the dash down Greenville and the Dallas Turkey trot.

Actually the YMCA Turkey trots 5k is exceptionally fast compared to the eight mile. I would say the younger runners, the younger fast runners run the turkey trot. And so it's tough to podium there and then Dashdown Greenville gets all of the adult runners who are fast. What are they hitting? Like low fifteens or something?

Yeah. In some years you'll [00:27:00] get under 15 at both of those races.

Javier Trilla: Yeah. I think high 14 took took turkey trot this year. And yeah, it's that 5k course of turkey trot is so tempting, especially since it breaks off in the eight miler at mile two and a half going downhill. Every time I run past it, I'm like, what am I doing on this eight mile?

I just turned left and get this over with good suffering done.

Chris Detzel: I know I'm the same. I remember I was in Boston one year as running the 5k and they, there was a world, I don't know if it's a world record, but it was a record for the Boston 5k. They literally have 50, 000 people running the 5k at the Boston.

Anyway, I try to do that every year. And. One time this guy ran a 13 something and I thought 13

Brent Woodle: Yeah, they have an elite race there. That's actually this coming boston. I'll be doing the 5k as well. You are

Chris Detzel: I will too

Brent Woodle: Yeah

What was that?

Chris Detzel: See you later. Like I'll see you basically when I saw that. So usually there's this corner that you go under this tunnel and then everybody's, [00:28:00] the really fast people are coming back and almost done. And I'm just still got like almost a mile to go, so yeah, I think for the people, anyways,

Brent Woodle: if you've, yeah, anyone who's run Boston, that underpass at mile 25, I don't remember what the bridge is.

In the 5k you get to do that twice. Yeah, you know you get to go out under it and then back. That's right. Yeah, that's right Is

Javier Trilla: it just an outback course? I've never done

Chris Detzel: It's not quite out and back there's it's like a little circle ish, yeah No, so any other right? So those are interesting races.

I haven't thought about the one in frisco So so caltown have you done that? Have a year?

Javier Trilla: Yeah, i've done caltown twice caltown was my second marathon. I raced it A few months after I ran New York and hit like a 25 minute pr 'cause I figured out what I was doing within the next two, three. It's the what marathoners always do.

The first one's kind of crap and the second one's a little better by a lot. And then I pay, I think we talked about this last time I had, I paced Cow Town with [00:29:00] Kieran. In 23. We had we had one of the, it was my first pacing gig, so I decided to pace a marathon.

Chris Detzel: I've paced a marathon once and I was like, I'm never gonna do that again.

Javier Trilla: It was good. I was in shape, so I was happy. It was part of my long run, so it was good. Was 10 or something? Yeah, that was we were the three 10 pace group. Yeah. Which sounds weird to say, but it's fine.

Brent Woodle: If you're training for a marathon, then pacing a marathon is a fun experience. But if you just sign up and you're thinking, I'll, I'll get into shape for this, it can be pretty rough,

Javier Trilla: but I think it's a good caveat that you should not do that.

Cause like people are counting on you. Do not use pacing a marathon as like a goal race and let people down.

Chris Detzel: Brent, I don't ever see you pacing. Have you done that much? Sure. I don't know. So at Cowtown

Brent Woodle: I've paced three hour twice and 305 once, I think this year, 2024, I raced the 10 K on Saturday and then I paced the marathon on Sunday.

So that was a fun weekend.

Chris Detzel: You raced it [00:30:00] and then still ran a three, three hour.

Brent Woodle: Yeah, it was in the middle of marathon training. And so it's a problem. Yeah. It's similar to the training I would have been doing anyways on that day, a few miles longer, but nothing crazy.

Javier Trilla: Yeah. It's like running a 24 miler on.

Yeah. And then just going out and doing a workout the same week. It's really, you turn around, you recover so fast. You're in high mileage compared to, being in the middle of training. So

Chris Detzel: why do you guys love running so much? You guys do a lot of it, right? Obviously you're both are very good at it, but what kind of keeps you.

Going, because I believe that motivation is only like a small piece of, you guys are literally doing 9, 000, whatever miles every week or ish, so it's gotta be more than motivation. There's the winning aspect of it, I'm sure. Or, you're good at it.

And what kind of keeps you focused in on that Brent go first.

Brent Woodle: So to me, it's an atomic habits thing. Like I. I appreciate the grind and the fact that if you [00:31:00] do something every day for a while, you'll get very good at that thing. I think that's a rewarding experience in and of itself. And racing does provide motivation.

So I'm in pretty good shape right now. It took a while. I took a break during COVID and it took a while to get back into this shape. And so now I feel like being able to race is my reward for all the work that I've done. Like I really enjoy getting out there and competing. It's a lot of fun.

Chris Detzel: I think for me, it was for a long time, when I always thought I was fairly good at running, but then I was overweight, and I wasn't way overweight, I was probably like 20, 25 pounds, and that, to me, kept me going for six years, seven years, and then there was the grind after that, it was like, alright, now I just got to do the work, because, I kept the weight off, no problem, and I ate, started eating better and all that kind of stuff, but, a lot of that keeps me still, I'm still a little bit motivated from it, because I don't want to be completely overweight, because I could easily get overweight, it's easy, especially now that I'm almost 50, I'll be 50 in [00:32:00] February.

When you get in your forties, man, it starts going like this, I don't know.

Brent Woodle: What? Sorry, I don't want to interrupt Javier there. No, you're fine. I will say one of the reasons I got into running initially, right? So I joined some running clubs and I saw who was there and I saw people who were older than my parents, who were fit and healthy and, Fun to hang around with and, drink beers with after the run.

And I thought that's who I want to be when I grow up. I don't want to be, I don't want to feel old and I'm trying to think of a way to describe it. But yeah, that was a big part of getting into running. Got it.

Javier Trilla: Yeah. I think for me, similar, like I want to stay fit and staying competitive and staying, keeping on the faster side keeps you motivated.

And not to the point where fun running and is attractive to me. I think I get bored very quickly. I have to have something to chase. Super type A with work. Super type [00:33:00] A with running. I enjoy the grind. I also, it's a little running can be a little toxic mentally too, though. Cause I wake up in the morning and if I skip a run or even today when I had a bail on my run, like I, I beat myself up.

But that same thing keeps emotive because I don't want to feel that way. And whether that's good or bad, that does keep me motivated. It keeps me going. Community aspect too. Almost all my friends are in the running community. I really don't have a lot of folks that I know outside of it anymore.

It's, it's, I love meeting my friends in the morning. I don't love waking up in the morning. I don't know anybody that does. Or that early as we have to get all these miles in. But there's no better feeling afterwards. I wake up every morning and I'm like, why am I doing this? I'm exhausted.

I want to get out of bed, but when I'm done and with my friends and. With everyone else and that feeling of accomplishment is second to none. So I, again, staying it, even though my body feels old right now, cause I'm all beat up during a training cycle. Like I, it does keep you young.

Chris Detzel: I think that no one really ever says after a run, damn, I wish I wouldn't have done that run.

I'm the same way. If I get out. Like this morning, it's too cold, and I've got this call at eight 30. I could've got up [00:34:00] at five 30 and, or five and ran six with you guys at the track and been home at seven, that's the way that goes. I, it's just a was there, and

Javier Trilla: that's a good point. Like right now, the winter is probably the hardest, like winter's the best training, but it is the hardest for me. It's, I prefer to just throw on a pair of shorts and throw my shoes and get out the door. This whole like bundling up to get out the door in the dark, in the cold, like it is tough to carry a flashlight.

Chris Detzel: I'm like, God dang it.

Javier Trilla: It's rough. And I think it separates people that, that do, I know a lot of people that are like, it's cold, I'm done. I'm out. And they go in hibernation or they run in the afternoon and you don't get a whole lot of running, but in the afternoon by yourself, they're gonna go so far.

So I think it's separates a lot of people that get up early and grind through the cold.

Chris Detzel: Brent, what do you do most of your training? Is it White Rock Lake or the house or what's the.

Brent Woodle: Yeah, so I live in Allen, I'm up in the suburbs, and I'm on a tight schedule with the kids, so I do all my runs from home.

I try to get to the lake on Saturday maybe [00:35:00] once or twice a month, but you would laugh if you looked at my Strava, the maps are all the same, they all start and end at my house. This morning was a wild one because I drove two miles to a park so that I could start and run on the trail there. But yeah it's a pretty boring routine, I vary it up.

I go North, South, East or West. Yeah. You're

Chris Detzel: pretty much all over the place

Javier Trilla: lately. I'm like at the lake or by my house or I don't I go to North Dallas sometimes too. We have our merit Monday group. That's on my Strava that we always typically meet at a coffee shop, North Dallas, but other than that, I typically stay around here.

Sometimes I'll go run into Katie, but. Not as much as I used to. A lot of the groups that are start at UP or Highland Park or whatever they tend to run earlier than I want to right now. I don't have to quite get up that early, but I also don't need 14, 15 miles midweek right now. And when I do, I will run with them usually just to get those 14, 15s in with actual other people.

Chris Detzel: Do you guys remember this? So there's [00:36:00] this club back in Rockwell. I don't think they're, maybe they are together, but I forgot what it's called, but they're really fast. They're a group that always went to Boston. So Leo was kind of part of it, but some, most of them are really fast or at least pretty fast.

I don't know if they're. Is that

Brent Woodle: a Jose Lopez's group?

Chris Detzel: He might've been in that one time. I don't know if he is now, but. My question is that maybe he was in that group, who knows, but my question is there Groups like that. You thought in the past that you're like, wow, this group is my speed or the group that I want to be part of, cause you go to Boston, there's all kinds of groups like that. There's not, there's sort of groups like that here, but I don't really see it as a sub elite or,

Javier Trilla: yeah, I think when I was, so WRC was my first running group, really. And then after that, when I started bouncing out a little bit more, there was a group called DRP back in the day, Dallas running project, that was like my strive to be, cause there are more of a midweek running group more so than I guess they ran on Sundays for their [00:37:00] long runs, but I think their fonts may disagree or not, but I think they're really the predecessor to Pegasus.

They always started at the star, not the Starbucks at Knox Knox and 75. So that group is change over the years and, turn into Pegasus, but that was like my first foray into like really faster midweek runs, like with a group and whatnot. That's converted to Pegasus now at this point.

Brent Woodle: Yeah, there's a few other groups. I was going to say DRP as well. Nomad came around for a short while. I don't think they ran consistently. Those guys are still around. They're still fast. But the group aspect of it I don't think really took off. But today I would say Pegasus and the Sloths both have a pretty good pace group for sub elites.

The Sloths are split. They have a kind of a South chapter and a North chapter. So North is up by me. South tends to train a lot with Pegasus, I think.

Javier Trilla: Yeah. That's true. Yeah. They tend to start from Starnok. So they'll start at [00:38:00] Germany Park a lot.

Chris Detzel: I just wondered if there was groups like that because, you guys are so competitive.

It's I'm not running with that dude.

Brent Woodle: Yeah, I don't get that vibe from the running community. Now, in different cities, I don't know. But, around here, the only thing I've gotten is maybe some people trying to prove themselves. That's more likely with the post collegiate runners. Just the younger people make sense, but I think on a group run people are mostly just trying to help each other

Javier Trilla: Yeah, I think so, too I don't feel a whole lot of competitive aspect between the groups and people you know once you race all bets are off, but for the most part

Chris Detzel: speaking of Jose Lopez He has this group I know he and the crews and a bunch of other people say do these runs in there their long runs are Super slow nine minute pace sometimes ten every time I think they just race for the speed work only, that's their speed work.

So I'm like do you really need to go that fast? When you're doing your pace or when you're just going at a slow, maybe you [00:39:00] should just go really slow. Cause these guys are running 121s and 120s halves and

Javier Trilla: I don't know. I don't want to touch this one.

Brent Woodle: Javier and I are both laughing because this comes up as a topic on our long runs. Cause we both know Jose pretty well, been running with him for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. And. Maybe Javier doesn't want to admit it. I suspect that Jose is doing some speed work on the side that isn't showing up on his Strava feed.

Really? Maybe on a treadmill or something. I think he's doing workouts.

Chris Detzel: What does he say? You know him well. What does he say? I'm gonna have him on. We never really

Javier Trilla: talked. That'll be the next question. Jose, what are you really doing? I know that he is big on linear as far as his training philosophy, which does say a lot of long, slow miles and lots of time on your feet.

But,

Chris Detzel: He

Javier Trilla: obviously gets that. You gotta run, you gotta run fast sometimes like you got to or else you do. Yeah. But he does

Chris Detzel: a lot of races, so maybe that's

Brent Woodle: where his speed comes from. I don't know. There's gotta be some bounding hills or something in there [00:40:00] too.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Have you seen him like at every finish line.

He looks like he's dying. Like even when he's only halfway there, he looks like he's dying cruises the same way if you'll know who Cruz, but I'm like, guys, just breathe or something.

Brent Woodle: That is one thing I'll say about Jose that I remember from all the days of racing him is that he really does put effort into his races.

And I like to see that.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. There's this guy in the trail running community and he runs hundreds of miles, like a hundred milers. And I was watching him one time. And this guy, he had 10 miles to go and he's sprinting basically, like the last, he's an elite, us kind of runner forgot his name, but he was like, that's how he was running.

Like what is wrong with this guy? And I think he won that particular race, but, and he does that for every race and I'm just like, yeah, that looks like Jose almost.

Javier Trilla: Some people are heavy breathers, man. I don't know you hear about mile one of a marathon, you're like, I don't know how you're gonna make it to the end of this race, but

Chris Detzel: I [00:41:00] agree.

I'll be running I'm gonna kill this guy. He can't even breathe. No, he beats me,

Javier Trilla: I'm also comically self conscious about my breathing. I don't want to sound like that heavy breather, so that I always feel like I am. I don't think I am, but

Chris Detzel: Is there anything that I missed that you guys were just hoping to get something out, that I just didn't ask?

Javier Trilla: I don't think so. No, I'm looking forward to Dallas. I'm looking forward to the rest of the racing season. I think we, we got off to a good start. I don't know if what you would consider the fall racing season in Dallas, but I think it starts with DRC or the turkey truck and Dallas is a big weekend.

Brent Woodle: Cowtown is a big weekend. Everyone is training really well and I'm excited to see the results.

Javier Trilla: And I'm hoping to just bounce back and, get through Dallas. And I like to race more next year, especially in the spring. I've talked to Brent about this. I would love to see you race

Chris Detzel: more Javier.

I really, I

Javier Trilla: don't race enough and I really don't. And I ran into that at at Turkey Trot where I've, I forget how to race. I [00:42:00] trained so much throughout the year and I do a lot of workouts and then I just. I forget how to hurt properly that I feel like I'm regularly conserving too much at the beginning of races and that's part of it like at what point do I need to flip the switch to hurting into the race and that's something that I struggle with for a long time because sometimes I'll run a race and it's talking to somebody about this either day, but have a mile or two left. And all of a sudden you feel great in the last mile of a half. And you're like where was that early in the race? Even though if, even if the race felt harder earlier, at what point is where you need to flip that switch to get really deep in the pain cave.

And that's something that I need to race more and not really so much five Ks, and something like mid length and harder. Cause five Ks just hurt right out the gate. I've never conserved really.

Chris Detzel: I'm a big believer in racing somewhat often only because, if you have a goal and.

You don't know what it's like to run race day, just what you're talking about, but I just don't think you're going to do your best necessarily. Like you don't know really what that best is. And race day is interesting because you have all that adrenaline, you want to go out [00:43:00] fast, sometimes too fast, sometimes not fast enough.

Or you don't, like you said, you don't know what it's like to hurt. Like I can hurt for the first three or four miles. But then sometimes can't get in gear the last several miles. You know what I mean? I was like, damn, I didn't hurt as bad or sometimes I go out too fast and I can't do well the next one.

So you learn from that kind of stuff,

Javier Trilla: yeah. I've got a bad habit of hyper focusing too much of my goal race and not racing along the way. I use Turkey Trot this year as a tune up for Dallas. So that was a good one to let me know where I'm at.

Chris Detzel: You should, man. I want to see you more.

Brent, you guys a lot.

Brent Woodle: A tough balance. So one thing I would say is I think I raised my half maybe too hard or trained too hard around then. And it might've impacted my marathon in the spring. But at the same point, you learn a lot from every race that you do. So it's tough to balance the, putting in those a hundred percent efforts and then also recovering in time for your goal race.

A

Javier Trilla: hundred percent. I feel like I used to race more when I was like earlier in my running career.

Chris Detzel: [00:44:00] Sometimes you just get too smart for your own good. You're like, oh, maybe I shouldn't do so many races. And you're like maybe I should. Guys, this has been really great.

I really appreciate you guys coming on and make sure you tell your friends and thank you everyone for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Tetzel. Don't forget to rate and review us. Thanks everyone. Thanks Chris.