Building Community Through Kindness: The Plano Running Club Story with Shirley Barbaro

DFW Running Talk: Shirley Barbaro
===

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

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

Shirley Barbaro : I'm doing great, Chris. How are you?

Chris Detzel: I'm doing well. And I was, it's funny because I was talking to Simon Lee and one of the Plano I was at a Plano Pacers run or whatever.

Shirley Barbaro : Yeah. So with the Plano Running Club, there's also.

Chris Detzel: That's right. We're not

Shirley Barbaro : the same club, but we play in the same area. Yeah. Planos not so big.

Chris Detzel: What's funny about that is for years I thought Plano Running Club and Plano Pacers was the same thing. Now I know the difference. My wife is Chris, don't be an idiot.

Like I go, it just rolls off the tongue both ways,

Shirley Barbaro : yeah it's all good. We know a lot of the same people here in Plano, so it's all good.

Chris Detzel: No and yeah, I ran into. Simon, and I know he runs with Plano Running Club when I was at a Plano Pacers thing, and so that's how I [00:01:00] ran into him.

I was like, who should I talk to? And it was you. And he said, I'm, I should talk to you, Shirley, about one is you're the founder of Plano Running Club, and you started that. We're gonna dive deep into that later, but I wanna talk a little bit about you, how you got into running and what started that journey for you?

Shirley Barbaro : I can honestly tell you that. I'm a late bloomer. I think I'm a late bloomer in life in general, so I didn't run track in school like a lot of runners do. I was well into, the a r piece age when I started running, in fact, it was 2010 and I remember going to the back then the Plano the Plano Luke's locker store to buy pair of shoes.

I didn't have any idea about running whatsoever. I never ran a mile in my life until 2010. So late bloomer here. And I'm like, okay, so

Chris Detzel: quickly, a RP is 50. I thought you were just 50 now 'cause I'm 50 as well.

Shirley Barbaro : You're very sweet. [00:02:00] But I didn't start out running, didn't do it in school.

I started 2010, I walked into the Luke's Locker Plano store back then, a pair of shoes, five minutes. They signed me up for some half marathon training program. I told them I don't run. I have never ran a day in my life. They didn't bother them. Two weeks later I was, it was January, 2010, I was at Russell Creek Park.

Like 6:00 AM in the dark, freezing. I never got through the first mile before I had to quit and start walking. I'm like, these people are nuts. What are they doing out here? I don't think running is for me. I'm like, okay, I'll give it a shot, but I don't think this is my thing.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Shirley Barbaro : So three months later I ran my first half marathon.

Wow. Yeah. If it wasn't for these kind people, back then, they were random strangers to me. If it wasn't for these kindhearted people that looked after me and encouraged me, I don't think I would've even gone back. Yeah. For day two or week two of training. [00:03:00] And since then they've been my friends.

Yeah. They've been. Community. Their kindness actually shaped my future as a runner, and it became the foundation on which Plano Running Club was built.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I like that. So let's, we'll get even deeper in Plano running Club in a minute, but, so you ran this half marathon and did you jog the whole thing? Run the whole thing?

Did you walk, run, how'd that go for you?

Shirley Barbaro : I finished running. Slow, but it was the most amazing thing because like I went from zero to 13.1. I never thought I could do it. And so from that on I think I ran five half marathons. I got hooked and I signed up for everything and before I knew it.

I was running my first full marathon like the following year.

Chris Detzel: Wow. That's pretty crazy. Alright. You run one half marathon and then you Hey, I'm gonna go do this again. And, really liked the community there. Did you what was your first race and then what'd you run after that?

What was a

Shirley Barbaro : it was the rock and roll half marathon. [00:04:00] Scroll back in the day.

Chris Detzel: I did. They no longer,

Shirley Barbaro : that was my first race. It was March two 10. I can't even remember how IFI, I was just glad to finish. I was one of those people that I'm like I'm can't believe that I actually ran 13 miles all by myself all at three months of training.

Yep. So that's pretty crazy. It's pretty to think about it. So then I ran five more, and then before I knew it. They sucked me into everything else, they were like, you are ready for a full marathon. I'm like, oh no. This is a whole different ballgame. But I signed up like a crazy person. I signed up, so I ran up my first marathon at Dallas.

It was called the Dallas White Rock Marathon back in. 2011, I ran my first marathon and pouring rain, Chris, freezing cold. I remember running around the lake, I'm like, I'm never doing this again. This is a stupid idea. Why do people do this stuff? I finished my marathon. I thought, you know what? I'm glad I did it.

I love these people, but I don't think. This is one and [00:05:00] done for me.

And one of my good friends pulled me aside and said, you might wanna run another. I'm like, are you? I can't even walk at this moment. He said, you be

Chris Detzel: No. Really?

Shirley Barbaro : I have to go wait, where's my phone? What is the bq? What is the

Chris Detzel: exactly?

Shirley Barbaro : I like, I'm new at this. I've never even, did I tell you that last year I didn't run a day in my life. I only, this is my first half. This is my first marathon. I'm like, what is a bq? Yeah. And they have to show me what was and what a crazy accomplishment it is. I'm like, oh my God, I don't know. So I have to reserve which BQ was what Boston Marathon is.

I'm like, I was that naive. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: A lot of people are their first marathon. They dunno,

Shirley Barbaro : I dunno, anything. I, a week later I find out I never looked up my time. I don't care. I'm done. Okay I'll think about this BQ thing later.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Shirley Barbaro : I got a first place age group win award from Dallas.

Chris Detzel: [00:06:00] No way.

Wow.

Shirley Barbaro : Yes, in my debut marathon, I won my age group and I be cute, so I'm done.

Chris Detzel: Wow. Yeah, exactly. Call it a day,

Shirley Barbaro : I feel like I was ahead at that point,

Chris Detzel: exactly.

Shirley Barbaro : And not have to worry about it. So when I tell you I'm on this accidental journey, it really is exactly that. I, yeah, I, what my intent was, I had no intention.

There was no plan.

Chris Detzel: Did you feel like that, just to back up a little bit, that whenever you were running these half marathons, did you start feeling better just, I don't know, like I don't know where you were like on the journey and why you started running, but because you were accidentally pushing that, but did you start feeling like.

Wow. I'm feeling accomplished. I'm feeling better, healthier. Anything like that, come to mind whenever you're doing some of those things or No?

Shirley Barbaro : I'm an extroverted person, so I like being around people. We, I bonded with a lot of runners. Those miles upon miles of running.

You bonded with the people you're with, right? That sense of camaraderie and sharing a purpose. When I say that I [00:07:00] wasn't really super motivated about running per se. I really mean it. I was bored. I was looking for, so I guess I was fairly fit, I know I didn't know I could run as well as I did, I fell into a sport that I have come to love because the people that I was on that journey with, truly, it was a hundred percent.

About connection with a community that truly cared about you? Yeah. I cannot tell you how many people had run next to me, ahead of me, behind me, encouraged me, celebrated every little milestone. I ran seven miles. My goodness, I've never done seven before. And make a big deal out of it. Yeah. And those moments really stood out in my mind in terms of what it means to be a community, right?

Not everyone is gonna be fast. Not everybody's gonna be, they're all on different journeys. Everybody is. Yeah. But I was so lucky to have met a [00:08:00] group of people that really took me under their wings. They schooled me 'cause I knew nothing.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Shirley Barbaro : I had to start from scratch and they had so much patience and I thought, wow, I never knew there was such a community until I joined Luke's locker.

And to this day, I will tell you that it's the best thing that about running period. As far as, running is a kind of, you have to be an adrenaline junkie sometimes, like when you go fast and you hit your workout, that's all great. But to me it's about the people you connect with and the purpose you serve and how it makes you feel that you part of something better.

Chris Detzel: I love that you said that. It's, I think that's why you and I do this, right? Is. I love the community piece of it. I love the, yeah, I love the running piece and allows me to be somewhat competitive in doing something that I think I'm fairly good at, but really it's just more about hanging out with people doing something similar and just watching them succeed in some of their goals, and it's fun to watch, somebody. [00:09:00] If somebody I'm competitive with beats me I'm happy for them. Like I, I want them to do better, but it all only fuels me a little bit to, Hey, maybe I can get 'em next time or something, but it's just more fun than anything. And then, nothing like going out to eat after a nice run or hanging out, and then some of those people become your best friends.

Shirley Barbaro : They are. My best friends to this day are my running friends that I met 10 years ago. In fact, my running partner in 2010 is still my best friend to this day. We shared so many miles together, thousands upon thousands of training miles. They you just don't forget that, right?

A chunk of your whole chunk of your life is with your running family, especially when you are training for marathons. Oh my goodness. You spend what? 60, 70 miles on the road with these people a week.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Shirley Barbaro : exactly.

Chris Detzel: I mean it's literally thousands of miles. People are doing, 1500, 2000, 3000 miles a year.

Yeah. So when you think of 10 years, and if you at [00:10:00] least did 1500, 2000 miles, that's a lot of miles. Literally thousands. It's crazy. We

Shirley Barbaro : get about the fact that we probably spend more time with our running family than. Real family, which is sad. But the reality is we do love each other. Our running family.

We do support each other. We are crazy. Even when we're not racing, we'll go support them. We'll cheer them, there are a lot of clubs out there that promote running in competition. And I'm all about competition. The competitive person by nature as well. But let's face it, Chris, we're never gonna win a race.

Very few with us will. Or even podium. But yet we are out there every day. Fighting for our best versions of ourselves and I wanna celebrate that. I don't wanna put the emphasis so much on pace and speed and finish time and whether you be cute or not. Yeah. It's great to be cute or not.

I'm happy to talk about that and. Part is part of my DNA as well, but there's so much more to running than just that, like [00:11:00] winning races and hitting your time. There's so much more to running than that.

Chris Detzel: I agree. I think that, a bigger percentage of people probably aren't gonna go to Boston Marathon, do the Boston Marathon from a, getting the time anyways and you can always get back or whatever.

But, at the end of the day, it's a very select few. And the reality is that. Although running is a com can be a competitive sport and things like that, look, as we get older, and look, I have 50 and I'm not as, in some ways, not as fast as I was when I was 40, and so the reality is that, I'm definitely not gonna win. I might be able to win a age group or something, now that somewhat fuels me, but it's more of now I just wanna hang out with people running, doing some things, and I just wanna stay in shape. I don't wanna get injured. I'll still run hard, the goal is not to be injured and hang out with people.

Shirley Barbaro : Yeah. Probably with you on that. And I think that we want we, I really wanna be inclusive. I really wanna be inclusive in a way that we promote that, right? Not to play down the [00:12:00] fact that you should go for the go, for the all of the glory, the time and all of that. There's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

But sometimes I think we scare, tend to scare people when we constantly talk about. BQs and doing the majors and running marathons. We're very in. We can be very intimidating and I'm trying to play that down and be more inclusive. Someone who may never run a marathon, it's okay. You don't have to, if you move forward and you move, you're a runner.

If you wanna run, you love running your runner. It doesn't matter your pace. Right or time for that matters. I really wanna promote that inclusivity into our running community and not be so elitist. I met a few people, a few won club, that are very elitist, right? If you can't run, this time you are out.

There's nothing wrong with that. I think we need those folks as much as we need inclusive clubs that says there's no parameter. There's no limits to joining and being part of a [00:13:00] community.

Chris Detzel: Let's dive a little deeper into that since you keep talking about community and and I don't disagree. I think there has to be, I think there's different types of clubs, right?

You have some clubs that, you like a Dallas running club that, brings new runners in, but also has somewhat of a, some fast runners there. But, a lot of times that's for kind of beginner runners and things like that. There's a club called for example, and they're way more inclusive than most, because they have two types.

I say two types, a few types of different runners. One is. Two mile or runner. They've never even run two miles before. And so they're bringing in, people that are very new to running. But then they do have some people that are running marathons and things like that and they have the coaches that have been there, done that.

But, and so it sounds like Plano Running Club is somewhat similar, not necessarily to rda, but I would love to hear the story get you to start it, and what was your thoughts? You had to name it at some point and do all these things. What got it together? I've never heard the story.

Shirley Barbaro : There's nothing original. We were in Plano, we were run clubs, so it was Plano running club. [00:14:00] Perfect. Not terribly original. I know about the trend that run club that are more like a social club would say that we're not, that we're actually a run club. That's socials. We're not a social club that runs.

There's a difference. Agreed. We actually, the emphasis still on running and still on hitting, the distances and the time and all of that. But then there's also a part of the social part that we value as well, because that's part of the community that we talked about and being connected with people that we talk about.

Some clubs just run race and then they're out of there. And that's right. That's right. But they, that's a very limited audience who are that hardcore. We're not that hardcore club.

Chris Detzel: You're not the sloths

Shirley Barbaro : Jen Pope and her crew. They, yeah, they're awesome. Run sometimes as well. I know probably half of those folks, they're the great people, but I'm like, Jen, if you do a cool down run real nice and I do my speed work, we might be able to hang around [00:15:00] for a mile.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, maybe for a mile. Yeah,

Shirley Barbaro : maybe for a mile.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Shirley Barbaro : But there's room for everyone, right?

Chris Detzel: Absolutely.

Shirley Barbaro : There's room for everyone and we welcome her just as much as we welcome that, that beginner that had never run before. Maybe I'm more sensitive to it because I was once that person who never knew about running, and I'm scared to death. I'm like, what is happening? These people are scary.

Chris Detzel: So it is, it can be scary for sure, and it's hard to sit in, my

Shirley Barbaro : first experience was that it was a scary thing and I was so lucky to have met kind people. I wanna make sure that the run club that I founded would be that club that would be welcoming and inclusive and not scare people and still go after stuff, right?

It's possible to do.

Chris Detzel: Did you like, so when did you start it and why? What was that story? Hey, I just wanna running club. We have some people, let's call ourselves Plano Running club. What's the

Shirley Barbaro : It was again like it was meant to be an accidental thing. I, we, I ran with Luke Flocker Plano for [00:16:00] several years.

First as a runner, then as a coach, and then one day in 2017 they closed.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, they did.

Shirley Barbaro : They close up shop. We were shocked. We already signed up for fall marathons out of desperation. I remember posting on Facebook Glisten. Guys, I have long runs on Saturday. I have a race in September. Who wants to go run a few miles?

Literally, that's how we started. It was like June 17 or something. 2017. Yeah. 37 people showed up that day.

Chris Detzel: Wow.

Shirley Barbaro : 37 of my friends from the Luke flock, we were the orphaned children.

Chris Detzel: Dang it. Lukes,

Shirley Barbaro : yeah. Outta desperation for some my people showed up. We all have to train. And Chris, I gotta tell you today, I was shocked.

Somebody, one of my admins told me that we have 41 new members this week. And we're now sitting at 5,300 and change members.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I see that. It's pretty awesome.

Shirley Barbaro : It's [00:17:00] crazy. I, it blows my mind, Chris that it is what it is today because I, in my wildest dream, I never thought this would be, I thought there would be a little club of my friends.

They're gonna go train me for marathons. And that would be mean. That was.

Chris Detzel: That's impressive.

Shirley Barbaro : 5,300 people later. I guess I was wrong about that little club that just wanna hang out with friends and run

Chris Detzel: Well, there's a lot of people in Plano now, or close to Plano and people are always looking for running clubs.

I see it, I have a group as well and they're always looking for people to run with, exactly. The number one, it's an interesting stat. So I have this, website called DFW running group.com. And so I built a lot of different things on it. And one of the pages that I built was called, running Club, it's DFW Running Clubs in my area, right?

And so Planos on there, every running club that I could think of at the time that I put on there, right? But it's the number one search thing out of every single thing on that website. It's down number two, but [00:18:00] pretty much it tops at one or two on, running groups in my area. And so somebody, people are looking for running groups all of the time, so I'm not surprised that your group continues to grow, in numbers, especially on Facebook, because people are wanting that they want to run with others.

And so you've created something pretty cool just on accident because some of your friends did it and then all of a sudden you kinda opened it up and then. How many people are you guys averaging, per, I don't know, what's your big day? Saturdays or Sundays? What's the,

Shirley Barbaro : Our big days are Wednesdays and Saturdays.

So on Wednesdays we average between 30 to 45 maybe. That's a lot. Chris, if you think about the fact that we meet at 5:00 AM in an ungodly Wednesday morning, it is crazy. We have a lot. Five, caffeinated people at that hour. And then on Saturday it goes from maybe 40 to 60. It depends on what people are training for.

Our members are, interestingly [00:19:00] enough, not of 5,300 members. Most of them don't actually run with us.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Shirley Barbaro : They just want connectivity. They wanna be connected.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Shirley Barbaro : They don't, we have people from all over the world. It's weird. We have people from South Africa, from Australia, we have members in Sweden, from all over.

So obviously these folks aren't running with us, but they wanna be connected, right?

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah. I think that, sometimes people travel sometimes and they wanna, they see maybe the group, not just yours, but other groups as well. And they're like, oh, maybe I should, there, there's this guy that reached out to me.

He like, Hey, I live in, where does he live

lives? It could be like Saudi Arabia or something like that. And he goes, Hey, I'm gonna be in Dallas. 'cause he I looked him up, made sure that it was legit, and and he runs at the club out there and things like, he goes, but I'm gonna be in Dallas and I would like to [00:20:00] run with some people for a couple of weeks.

And I was like lemme know where you're at in Dallas, blah, blah, blah. So he'll send me a message, but there's potential that I'll run with him, just because he found, yeah, you have to be running talk in this instance, just, and yeah. I think it's pretty cool that we can do that, yeah. So just come on Saturday and run a Plano running club,

Shirley Barbaro : I actually, we actually grew tremendously through COVID. Because of

Chris Detzel: that.

Shirley Barbaro : Yeah. You can't run together, so you wanna stay connected in some other way. It's really fascinating how we can be so global and, in nature.

But we are here in Plano, but still we can connect with thousands of people across, all kinds of time zones.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. So do you guys just meet twice a week? Is that how that works? And,

Shirley Barbaro : No. We run seven days a week. We have events seven days a week. Okay, so there's no excuse not to run with us. We try to be on the east side of Plano a couple of days a week.

We try to be where we are at Winhaven the rest of the time. We have track Tuesdays, we have hills on Thursdays. We have easy ones on Friday. Okay. We have. On [00:21:00] Sundays we're a real chill, walk, run, recovery day. So we actually do have events seven days a week that people can just drop in on. But Saturday and Wednesdays are main, the big one.

Events. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, it's the big ones. And now do you go every one of 'em or what?

Shirley Barbaro : I hit. On average above, I'm always there. Wednesday and Saturday I'm usually there on Fridays I hit some track. Tuesdays, I do Sundays, so I'm,

Chris Detzel: that's pretty awesome. Do you have a, I'm just curious because I don't, it's very interesting to me is do you have like kind of admins that help I just run the group, but that are also there on the days. Maybe you're not there, that help on it. What does that look like?

Shirley Barbaro : So we divvy up the duties, like on, on certain days, on Sundays, somebody's always in charge of that run, so I can't make it no big deal. Somebody's in charge. Saturdays, multiple people has to be in charge.

We have too big of a group and the routes are wait long and complicated. Wednesdays we have, again, multiple start times. So we're, I'm there usually at five o'clock. They take the 5:00 AM and the five 30 and then somebody takes over the [00:22:00] 6:00 AM So we have different admins that will take up those days to make sure everyone get their workout in.

That's

Chris Detzel: pretty awesome. Do you guys ever do do you ever bring like a. Shoe person there to show out shoes. What does that look like? Because that seems cool.

Shirley Barbaro : We recently partnered with Dallas Running Company to do our 20 miler a couple of weeks ago. So they brought in, what is it ASIC shoes and gave away some raffles and gave away some shoes.

It was really fun. And they set up. Donuts and coffee and so on. So next up, we're gonna partner with Three Feet Plano to do our BMW Dallas Marathon partnership run. Is it next? Next? Wow. It's in two weeks. Two weeks. There's a lot going on, and we are gonna be doing some things with Lululemon. They actually have a brand new shoe line that they wanna promote.

We're gonna give it a shot. We'll try.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Are you working with what's her name? I forget her name. I'd have to because she, she called me one day anyways. Who are you working with at Lululemon? Do you know

Shirley Barbaro : [00:23:00] Tara?

Chris Detzel: No. It's probably somebody different that I'm working with.

Shirley Barbaro : So she, go ahead. So Tara comes to our run on Wednesdays and we met, and they're really, committed to being part of the running community and promote their brand and partnership with the running community within Dallas.

So we're happy to do that. Lululemon is a very popular brand with runners in general. We all wear it anyway, so it's a really natural partnership.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. They're trying to get more into the shoes and stuff. This woman, her name's iman Wilkerson. And she worked with them and, she showed me their shoes last year and she's yeah, hey, look, come and look at the shoes again.

Because they're very comfortable, but I didn't, I wasn't a big fan of running and the first line. But it seems like they're committed to making those better. Now, I still wear, I, by the way, I still wear those shoes on a daily basis because they're comfortable and, but I don't run it.

Shirley Barbaro : Brothers are very weird about their. You just don't change. You find something that works for you and [00:24:00] pretty much dialed into that one pair. And certainly not on race. That's Sure. So it'll be, interesting to see how members will respond to those new shoes.

Chris Detzel: We'll see. How do you manage that? Like, how do you get vendor? Do you just call up a vendor and just say, Hey, would you come up to our run? Or what does that look like?

Shirley Barbaro : Do anything, Chris. Don't do anything. They reach out to me mostly. Wow. That's awesome. I get people message me, new balance ass, whatever.

I guess we're well known enough in the local community where they know that there is a population of runners that will need shoes. Fleet Feed has a running program that Simon and Joe are heading, so we're well connected with Fleet Feed and through them we've had, that makes sense.

Products that we could certainly, take advantage of. It, it's yeah, I guess our name is out there because people do reach out to me and say, Hey, we wanna have this partnership, or, Hey, we, can we come out and, have you tried this new product?

Chris Detzel: Yeah. [00:25:00] I love that. That's when you have it made, I'll have to, Hey, do you mind coming to our run?

It's now they're like, Hey, can we come to your run? It's yeah, okay, but do it this Saturday.

Shirley Barbaro : I are very blessed. I don't, I cannot tell you how fortunate I feel like we are, that, all this is happening in a very good way to our club. And listen, we'll take it. All the good fortune.

Come on. Come on by.

Chris Detzel: I love it. Now, what's you do paces and things like that. Is it just. Run it. Here's the route, and then you go run what you want. Or you meet some people, let see what they're, okay. Yeah.

Shirley Barbaro : We have, we don't have training programs, we don't have coaching programs, we don't have races, so we put out, we understand the runners, what they're training for.

Their mileage or how much, how many miles they have to run in a certain day. So we, I put out the routes and we make sure that they have nutrition and water out on the course, and it's up to them to hit those routes and take advantage of the water stops and make sure that they, stay safe.

Especially in the

Chris Detzel: summer [00:26:00] months. A hundred percent. How do it's a lot of. Time and effort. When you think about one doing the routes and then the water stops and things like that, do you just have somebody that volunteers for that or is there they a they

Shirley Barbaro : volunteer hundred percent. People just say, Hey, I need someone to pick up a cooler at this spot.

A few people say, yes, they donate money to pay for the water. It just, it's it's a hundred percent volunteer.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I figured it was volunteer. I just want, like, how do you get people to actually pick up the water things or do the water things,

Shirley Barbaro : they, I ask, I'm like, I need some volunteer for Water State before stop.

We'll volunteer.

Chris Detzel: Okay. Yeah. I guess when you have 40 or 50 runners coming out, 60, there's always gonna be somebody that is willing to volunteer, yeah.

Shirley Barbaro : You don't ever, that. We rotate through some of the responsibilities. Not everybody had to hit it every single week, but yeah, there's always somebody who's willing to volunteer and to take care of their own group.

So we always appreciate those folks. Yeah. It's, to me, that's what community is all about, right? [00:27:00] Volunteerism. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: A community like yours, right? That's all you're doing is doing it a hundred percent. On your free time.

Shirley Barbaro : Yeah. So people don't, so I have admins, they donate their free time as well after like sometimes it's like a full-time job.

I'm trying to manage all the events and coordinate everything. But it's a labor of love.

Chris Detzel: I can tell. I can tell. What's kinda the hardest thing you think to managing this whole thing over the years?

Shirley Barbaro : Gosh, just finding time, making time for that and sometimes it. It's, it takes just a handful of people to get things done.

But again, it's not hard work because I love doing it.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Shirley Barbaro : And I love seeing people coming out and enjoying it it's not work if you love it.

Chris Detzel: I love what you're doing. I think it's pretty awesome. Every time I see your group Plano running club, I'm like, man, this thing's, that place is huge.

There's tons of people there every single time I come out there on a Saturday, and I need to come out and run with you guys. It'd be fun just to, just do a run or two, what would you want people to know about Plano Running Club that maybe they just don't know?

We talked a [00:28:00] lot about it,

Shirley Barbaro : so a lot, people have asked me, what is the secret sauce? I'm like, what is the secret of you having all these people come up week in and week out? And I always tell them the same thing. Love for the sport is genuine. Our enthusiasm is genuine. The way we're having fun, when you see those silly videos and photos on social media is genuine.

We are actually having fun and having a good time. Genuinely sell. We genuinely celebrate every win, every milestone, every race. We try to be there for people. Yeah, and people get that I get that we actually are who we are. People get a little skeptical these days. With social media being what it is.

But what you see out there is actually us.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah, I see you guys, sometimes celebrating others, whether they're gonna Chicago, I don't know, whatever race, at a dinner or some breakfast place or something, and I'm like, wow, that's true community.

[00:29:00] And it feels for a long time you've created. A great community in the Plano area. Yeah. And so

Shirley Barbaro : only proud the only to this happy go lucky group that we have. The one thing they always hate is how early we are. That's the only complaint I,

Chris Detzel: People have to go to work and it's been hot in the summer.

Shirley Barbaro : Exactly. They. Do you guys ever run in the evenings? Yeah. Do you have at 5:00 AM and I'm like, not really. We're just morning runners. It's on our DNA, we try to schedule evening runs, but it never works out. It's just we just like mornings. So that's the only complaint that I've. Any kind of pushback if I, people give us feedback is can you start a little later?

So that is about it. And that we like coffee and I'm like, do you do anything other than coffee? No. We love coffee. Every runner loves coffee.

Chris Detzel: I just tell 'em, I like to go to bed about eight 15, and so if I have to go to a run at seven and be done at eight 30 minutes, I'm already past my bedtime,

Shirley Barbaro : That's it. That's the only complaint. You guys drink a lot of coffee and you start way too early. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: [00:30:00] I just think early is always a little bit easier, but yeah, look, you can't do everything, some people do like to do the evenings, they like to cocktails afterwards and things like that's.

Shirley Barbaro : Yeah. Part of our DNA as well, we do social, we do socialize, and when we do these happy hours and dinners or whatever, we we have a good time.

Chris Detzel: You're just not going out to run in the evenings. You're just going to have cocktails.

Shirley Barbaro : Exactly. We already done that, so we've earned that cocktail, right?

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Do you guys have a party every year or something for Christmas or anything like that? What is that?

Shirley Barbaro : Invite you to our season end party.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

I'll definitely come,

Shirley Barbaro : always have a season end right after the Dallas Marathon. It's gonna be the day after this year. Okay. And then we're gonna celebrate and we gonna have bring all the medals for the year.

Nice. We're gonna win. Proud. We're gonna cheer to a good year of racing and running. It's a big deal. We bring out a lot of people and we had a good time. I'll invite you. Okay. I'll definitely come.

Chris Detzel: Okay. That'd be fun for [00:31:00] sure. Is there anything that I missed that, that I should ask questions about or that you're dying to tell me about you or the club or anything?

Shirley Barbaro : You can ask me anything. We love to run and we hope to be able to make a big splash at the Dallas Marathon. We always do. That's the next big race. Not Chicago is next, and then there's New York and there's all these other races that we're going to hit and we're gonna wrap it up in Dallas and we're really excited about it.

This is the first year we usually race, right? So here we actually gonna volunteer. We're gonna be at the water stop up at mile 18, you know that. Okay. Horrific hill.

Chris Detzel: I do, I've run it once the marathon, but I know the hill and.

Shirley Barbaro : If you run the marathon, you know how terrible that hill is. And we've all run I've run [00:32:00] it a bunch of times. So we're gonna be up on that hill and cheering and handing out water. So we are gonna, we are gonna volunteer this year instead of racing. There will be other people racing, but personally I will be heading up the water stop that year.

Chris Detzel: I, I love that. And Dallas is such a good place to do that, and I'm sure they appreciate it. Do you guys volunteer in other races or is that the bigger

Shirley Barbaro : We try to volunteer at the local races. Yeah. So we will be at Big Star. We will be at all the local races and Dallas of course, but we will also travel to races.

I am not running New York, but I am the mobile cheer squad captain for New York Marathon.

Chris Detzel: That's great. That'd be fun. We

Shirley Barbaro : have somebody, we do have a cheer squad. Travel, traveling just to cheer others on at races, yes, we get on the plane, pay for it out of our own expense to go cheer.

Chris Detzel: That's community.

I love that. And I think that's a good kind of, good place to end. Shirley, what you've created. To me is really amazing and the time and effort [00:33:00] that you and the team and the group has put into, Plano Running Club is pretty cool. And I respected the hell out of it because, I know it takes a lot of work time and effort, there's nothing like hanging out with people that are doing similar things that you are.

And in this case, it's running and learning from each other. Staying healthy. Like to me, even if you don't necessarily wanna try to stay healthy, you don't, you can't help it. You know you're running.

Shirley Barbaro : Yeah. It helps you know, everybody to be healthy and safe and enjoy running for however many years they wanna keep running.

I do want running until I hit the dirt nap, but.

Chris Detzel: Exactly,

Shirley Barbaro : so this gives me a reason to stay, keep up, right? So this is a very selfish reason for myself. I tell that to people. I'm like, I hate running by myself. So I go through great lengths to make sure I have somebody to run with. Yeah, I've built an entire run club, so I need That's right by myself.

Chris Detzel: I love that. Runners are so selfish that I built, I'm selfish too. I built this running club for myself and so I can meet [00:34:00] people and run with people.

Shirley Barbaro : Exactly.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, exactly.

Shirley Barbaro : This is not charity. This is selfishness.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I love it. That could be the title of this podcast. We'll see how it comes out. But Shirley, this has been really great.

Thank you so much for coming on and telling your story and playing a running club story. Really do appreciate it.

Shirley Barbaro : Thank you for having me. Hope it will be a good podcast. And hey, listen, I am serious when I say I want you to come up to our party, I'll be there. I'll join you wherever you are. Isn't Leah doing Boston?

Yeah, I know Leah. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Leah she's my wife, everyone. So she is doing Boston, her 13th, Boston in a row. So she's excited about it.

Shirley Barbaro : I will be in Boston this year, so I'll try there.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. And I'll be there as well. I told her now every year I'm gonna go because I had this podcast thing going on too.

And so I know a lot of people that I could hang out with, talk to interview. I don't know, there's a lot of cool things we can do.

Shirley Barbaro : Yeah.

Chris Detzel: So

Shirley Barbaro : I'll be there. So let's connect.

Chris Detzel: We will for sure. Hi, Shirley. Take [00:35:00] care. Thank you everyone for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Zel.

Please rate and review us. I don't see enough ratings and reviews, so maybe you guys don't come to the end of this podcast. But also, if you go to sub DFW running talk.subset.com, go to our newsletter, subscribe and get all the cool stuff that we have coming out every week. Shirley, thanks again.

Shirley Barbaro : Thank you, Chris.

You have a wonderful day.

Chris Detzel: You too.