Dallas Running Scene: Dr. Mani Alavi's Journey from Two-Mile Sprints to Marathon Stars

Chris Detzel (00:01)
All right, welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel and today we have a special guest, Mani Alavi, Mani, how are you?

Mani Alavi (00:10)
Good man, happy new year. How are you?

Chris Detzel (00:12)
Happy New Year, and by the way, Dr. Mania Lavi, sorry about that. I'm really good, how about you?

Mani Alavi (00:15)
Hahaha

Good, good man, how's your training going?

Chris Detzel (00:22)
You know, it's pretty good. You know, last year I was a little bit injured for the first of the year, for several months, and then, you know, I didn't really train after May for too much, and so it wasn't great, but I'm back on it and starting to get into a bunch of running groups. So think I'm part of three or four of them. I like to kind of spread it out lately. And we'll talk about all of that and how much you really enjoy this Dallas community, but how about yours?

Mani Alavi (00:48)
Yeah,

Good, man. Yeah, training's going well. Let's see. You know, just mostly training right now. Our Boston training block started right now. So we're all kind of just jumping into that. And then I'm going to actually I got into the Tokyo lottery this year. So I'm going to do that. I haven't decided if I want to race it or not. And then between then, yeah, it'll be my fifth star. So that'll be cool.

Chris Detzel (01:09)
Congrats.

Mani Alavi (01:13)
Cool. So yeah, man. Thanks so much for having this show. First of all, good job on your show. Kudos to you. Thanks for the invite. Thank you for promoting DFW running again. We were talking offline. I really think Dallas has the best running community. know people in Austin, you know, that that's kind of the Mecca for endurance sports sometimes and maybe places like Colorado and Utah and stuff. Man, but Dallas is a pretty special place, if you ask me.

Chris Detzel (01:20)
course.

It's a good one.

Completely agree. And that's kind of why I started this is, that how do we promote runners within the DFW area? I'm not saying that, you know, we might take some people in Houston and Austin and talk to some of those folks because a lot of us runners go out to those races out there. But today I want to talk a little bit about your journey. is just, let's start from the beginning, from a running standpoint. And you've, you've a very accomplished person. used to be an attorney. Now you're a doctor.

all these kinds of things and we'll kind of see how that plays into into your running. But let's start off from the beginning. When'd you start running?

Mani Alavi (02:19)
When did start running man if you ask my mom kind of like for scump. I just started running one day No, you know, I just I ran pretty competitively when I was younger. I was like a two-miler and then I transitioned more into middle distances in my 20s and 30s like in law school actually I was Really like, you know focus on I linked up with a group of folks. I was training for a specific endeavor and

Chris Detzel (02:24)
Yeah, that was runny. Yeah.

Mani Alavi (02:49)
That's kind of what I got into. And then we'll talk a little bit more about it. But then in my mid 30s, I had a pretty bad injury that set me back a few years. And then I've had sort of a kind of a seven year comeback. And yeah, man, that's my.

Chris Detzel (03:00)
man.

Wait back up.

So you said a lot of things in there without saying a lot of things. So in high school you ran the two mile, so that was in track. Did you run the mile, two mile kind of thing? Okay.

Mani Alavi (03:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, that was was my yeah,

yeah, I played every sport. But the thing that I excelled at the most was probably, you know, the short distances. Truthfully, I wanted to be Dion Sanders. I played defensive back and I and I I and I did track I had the gold chains and everything to prove it. Unfortunately, I did not have the talent of prime time. Yeah.

Chris Detzel (03:33)
played football?

Yeah, you know, I guess still

very talented to coach now, you know.

Mani Alavi (03:48)
Yeah, man, yeah, he definitely is talented on many levels. But yeah, man, those were the prime time days. So yeah, I was pretty arrogant little guy. then, and then I, again, transition to, I think what happens is as you get older, you transition to longer distances. For some people, your aerobic capacity just is immense. You can just keep developing those things.

Chris Detzel (03:53)
Yeah, that's right.

You

Yeah, a lot of us do.

Mani Alavi (04:17)
And yeah, man, that's kind of my running. Running has just always been a big part of my life. It's just been something that I think I would argue and a lot of people would argue, this is what we do as a species. are physically active creatures who are just extremely adept at running, and especially long distances.

Chris Detzel (04:40)
I agree.

think that, you know, if I look back and, know, one of the things that I said when I was, I'm almost 50. So when I was 36, 37, I started running and in the beginning it was more about losing weight, you know, and I think I lost 25 pounds just pretty quickly, you know, and it was, just losing weight. It was just trying to get more healthy, you know, through running. It really helped me to kind of eat a little bit better and be smarter about all that kind of stuff. That took some time, but, but also it was, Hey,

Mani Alavi (04:54)
Nice.

Mm-hmm.

Chris Detzel (05:10)
I'm pretty good at this. I started in PRs, half marathons, doing marathons and that kind of stuff and then it was motivating. Then it became a lifestyle. And so here I am 50, I haven't really stopped training. I've least done 1,000, 1,500, 2,000, it depends on the year, but certainly kind of kept somewhat consistent. And that kind of sounds like where you're at. The reason I brought that up is because, look, no matter how old you get,

Mani Alavi (05:31)
That's awesome.

Chris Detzel (05:39)
especially when you start hitting your 40s, you start seeing a lot of men and women starting to do more of that running. And you're starting to it blow up even more over the last seven or eight years. And I really love, love that. I mean, you're seeing it in Boston and kind of bringing down the times because, you know, there's so many people trying to get it and they're starting to get in and things like that. And we'll talk about that in a minute for you, but you've had quite the journey. So you mentioned that you're, you did high school kind of.

bunch of different things, but then you transitioned in your 20s to running? Is that right?

Mani Alavi (06:11)
No, I ran. So yeah, longer distance. So I would do middle distances. In my 20s, I was in law school. was actually training to be a, kind of as an aside, I was trained to be a JAG officer. And the folks that I was like linked up with at the time, man, it was, they were just so intense. And I personally, you know, I'm a pretty social runner. like

Chris Detzel (06:13)
I mean, like longer.

Okay.

Mani Alavi (06:40)
linking up with a good sort of foundation good people and man once I get dialed in with a group I can definitely just excel and so we would man I Got so fit in law school and Middle distances was my thing. I loved just racing like 10k 10k 10k and half marathons But yeah, those are kind of my thing. But just you know, honestly, you're just doing you know

Chris Detzel (06:58)
It's like a 5k or 10? Okay. Okay.

Mani Alavi (07:07)
PT basically and you're just working so hard to just become just as well-rounded athlete and I think that really helped me in a lot of ways And then and then we can talk a little bit more about how I got into sort of longer distances like marathons and so forth But my first man my first experiences with the marathon was not very good at all. I think

Chris Detzel (07:29)
Yeah. Tell me about that. When did you run

your first marathon? Where was it? And tell me about the experience.

Mani Alavi (07:35)
Yeah, so mean back then, you know, again, I came from a reasonably good running background. You know, I could run like a sub 35, 10K, could, you know, sub 17, 5K. mean, you know, again, so what, so honestly, yeah, I mean, you know, I think, you know, certainly not like, you know, Olympic level or anything like that, but just reasonably pretty good. So.

Chris Detzel (07:49)
Pretty good athlete.

Mani Alavi (08:03)
So what happened perfectly, to be honest, is I was trying to impress a girl. had this, I had a crush on this young, cute little girl and she, I thought the best way to kind of link up with her was if we trained for a marathon. So we were in college then, so we, I said, hey, why don't we train for this Austin marathon together? And Austin marathon is, is a pretty, is a pretty hard course.

Chris Detzel (08:29)
That's the hilly

one, right?

Mani Alavi (08:30)
It's a hilly course. So here's my logic, Chris. So please don't laugh at me too much. So I had a couple of goals. Yeah. So as a girl, my strategy was if I spend time with her, she might like me. Number two was I wanted to do a marathon. Like I was going to do one marathon, be done with it. And I had a training buddy and me and him would go and run like seven to 10 miles as fast as we could.

Chris Detzel (08:37)
It's a girl. Hey, say no more.

Mani Alavi (08:57)
You know, so much of the training and the science behind running was not really known back then. know, the 80-20 running, everyone has the knowledge now. I if you just go and Google what is the appropriate way of running, you'll probably get like 90 % of it, right? But we thought, hey,

Chris Detzel (08:57)
Yeah.

Mm-mm.

find it.

And by the way,

Monty, you don't need Google anymore. You have Claude or ChatGPT and it just tell you. Anyways, we're past Google now.

Mani Alavi (09:18)
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, or yes, I'm sorry. I'm dating myself. I remember the good old days when we had Google. Anyway, so my my my that was my kind of my goal. I wanted to run a marathon. I was my goal was to 45 and me and my buddy, I'm going to leave his name out of it. So we were like, hey, we can run like a 10K in 35 minutes.

Chris Detzel (09:27)
I'm just teasing. Yeah, exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Mani Alavi (09:48)
If we just bring that down a little bit. So if you do the math, if you run like a 39 minute, 10 K multiple times, you finished a marathon in about 245, right? yeah. So, and, or, and then, the, the young lady that I had, you know, my eyes on, she and her friend actually followed a training plan, believe it or not.

Chris Detzel (09:58)
Sounds reasonable for your first.

Yeah, well.

Mani Alavi (10:15)
Yeah,

so they followed the training plan. They would do long runs. You know, me, we were too cool for that. So marathon day comes by and it's kind of a warm day, but that's not the point. That's part of the point. Yeah. So I remember what happened. So the start line, you know, I'm starting at the front with the cool kids. Me and my buddy, we're going to do a 39 minute 10 case.

Chris Detzel (10:30)
Well, that's part of the point, I'm sure.

Mani Alavi (10:45)
just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then we'll be done. And I was telling her, hey, I'll wait for you at the finish line, et cetera, et So we start. We'll call my friend John. I won't tell you his last name. we, man, we fly through the first 10K. I remember looking down at my watch going, wow, we're going like, that was a 38 minute 10K. That's pretty, that's, no, no, I'm like, we could probably speed it up a little bit, man. I think maybe we can even do like 240 too that day.

Chris Detzel (10:57)
You

little fast.

That's a pretty good idea. Oh man.

Mani Alavi (11:14)
And anyway, so, I mean, just honestly, it's, my wife has a funnier version of the story, but, so about seven, eight miles into this thing, and I don't think we had done a run longer than 10 miles. I just feel like I'm gonna die. My buddy, I think,

Chris Detzel (11:16)
And you're just in the first 10k.

Mani Alavi (11:43)
in an intelligent way fakes a hamstring injury and he's out. And once he drops out, just my whole morale and everything is gone. now, mean, I had, my gosh, yeah. if it was a Strava post, it would be so funny. It would be like, know, 610, 610, 610, 610, boom, like you just fall apart. So.

Chris Detzel (11:56)
And you're

Mani Alavi (12:10)
I don't know, about two hours into the race, I'm definitely walking at this point. I'm limping. I went to the eight station for about 25 minutes. I kid you not. Cause I remember there was a nice group of people, Hey, do you want to drop? I'm like, I really want this medal. And then, and then I'm walking and then I see her and her friend just passed me and I'm like, there, there goes, there goes our relationship, you know? And,

Chris Detzel (12:15)
Mm-hmm.

Mani Alavi (12:40)
And then I remember, so I started with the Fast Kids and I remember sometime about five hours into this race, someone told me, hey, you know there's a cutoff for this race, right? Like, cause I was like talking to someone while we were limping along. I don't know, it was like six hours or eight hours. Well, no, I I, I mean, obviously none of this was planned really well. So anyway, long story short, I finished at 523.

Chris Detzel (12:52)
Did you even know what that was?

No, I'm saying did you even know what a cutoff was? Because you even thinking about it.

Mani Alavi (13:07)
The young lady that I was interested in, she finishes a four or something. I thought she was never gonna have anything to do with me again, but she actually brought me some soup later and like it actually, yeah, so anyway, it turns out, you know, we have two kids together, we're married. I'm sure she has a different version of the story, but that's my version and yeah.

Chris Detzel (13:16)
We'll next.

Nice.

sure of it. Next time you have to get her on and tell the story,

you know.

Mani Alavi (13:31)
Yeah, basically I blew up at 10 miles and then crawled to the finish in 523. She crushed her race. She's very proud of that. Yeah, it was and then I'm like, I will never do another marathon again. So that was I guess in the long run, was was the girl I was trying to impress. I guess she was impressed enough to hang out with me for a little bit longer. So.

Chris Detzel (13:45)
Yeah, sounds like me.

She was impressed enough and you've got a couple of kids together,

so it worked out. That's pretty cool. mean, look, everybody has their story and there's always a, especially when you first start trying to impress somebody, that's always gonna probably lead to disaster, especially when you're cocky and I'm sure you were humbled that day.

Mani Alavi (14:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

mean, who knew no marathon was so long, you know? Who knew like, no one told me, you know? Like who knows like, you know, just because you can run a fast 5K, you can't finish a marathon. But hey, I got.

Chris Detzel (14:19)
Yeah.

Well, it's just like anything.

mean, you know, it's a lot of people have this misconception that not that marathons are easy, but you know, they can go out, especially if they're a talented runner like you, you know, and just do it and not do all the training. So that's one to a lot of people know that they're talented and I've seen very talented people say, you know, run their first marathon and say, Hey, my goal is, and I've said this in other podcasts is, to run Boston and qualify for Boston. And my advice is, Hey, look, you know,

I'm not saying you shouldn't set those high expectations and goals and I think that's okay. But as one of my other guests said, have a plan B as well, a B goal. Because the reality is, is our bodies have got to get to know or have got to start feeling it. And it could sometimes take years from a marathon standpoint to really get to where we really could hit our full potential. And that's my thought is...

Mani Alavi (15:24)
for sure, yeah.

Chris Detzel (15:27)
I'm still trying to get my full potential in the half marathon and other races, you know, and I'm almost 50 and I've been doing this for a long time. Um, and you've been doing it even longer. And somebody even told me this once is I kind of see it as, I, they get older. They say my PR, I look at PRs in my twenties, PRs in my thirties and forties and fifties. I no longer look at him as, I want to beat my PR that I was 20 or 30. You know what I mean? So it's gotta be realistic when it comes to that stuff, you know?

Mani Alavi (15:55)
Yeah, for sure. And I guess the other thing I would say is sometimes sympathy and can be the best driving force of bringing people together. So I think she felt so sorry for me after that experience. So, yeah, so honestly, it turned out so well for me in a lot of ways. I didn't do a marathon for many years later, but I definitely taught me.

bunch of lessons. One, how to impress a girl. And two, I will say this. information is so readily available. We talked about Google and chat, GPT and so forth. mean, back then, you know, I mean, so if you ask, like, if you just ask any person, like, it's not

Chris Detzel (16:26)
Well, that was one lesson, right, is I'm not doing them again for a while.

Mani Alavi (16:48)
It's very counterintuitive to think, I'm going to run slow for most of the times and then I'm going to do the specific workouts. Right. From a training standpoint, like if you just ask an intelligent human, hey, like you want to run 26.2 miles as fast as you can, what should you do? It's not counterintuitive to say, hey, I should run at that pace all the time and I should basically just keep doing that. Right. If you want to run a three hour marathon,

Chris Detzel (16:54)
from a training standpoint. Yeah.

Mani Alavi (17:15)
It makes sense to just run a 652 pace all the time, all the time, right? But of course, that's not how we adapt and that's not how we get stronger. Of course, yeah, that's how we get injured. I didn't know any of that. But also we didn't have super shoes back then, so maybe that was part of it. I would have done maybe a few minutes faster, who knows?

Chris Detzel (17:24)
That's right. That's how we get injured.

I mean, super shoes are

a little bit, are fairly new as well. What, five or six years old now, so.

Mani Alavi (17:40)
Yeah,

I think I heard about him like 2019, 2018, 2019. Someone said, hey, check out these vapor flies. I'm like, oh my goodness. This is a, it's like the first time I held the iPhone. It's like, oh my gosh. Yeah. Nothing will be ever the same. No. Yeah.

Chris Detzel (17:46)
That's a vapor fly. Yeah, exactly.

And it hasn't been. They've changed everything.

You mentioned that you've run your first marathon and you got really injured. Can you talk a little bit about before the injury and what you were doing and how you got injured and what it was? It took you a long time to get over that.

Mani Alavi (18:14)
yeah, my injury, yeah, we can talk about that briefly. actually my injury happened about 11 years ago. And the reason I know that is, so when my daughter was born, she's turning 11. So again, I would run, I would run with people, had kind of a running system. Again, none of this was that great back then. I think we're all learning more and more. But I had a community, I would go and do miles.

Chris Detzel (18:19)
Okay.

Mani Alavi (18:40)
I don't think we had Strava back then, I can't remember, but I don't remember how we logged our miles. I think I just kind of put it on different ways. Yeah.

Chris Detzel (18:47)
Nike app had some stuff. Back then, Nike

was big in the watch and I if you remember that, but that's what I used.

Mani Alavi (18:52)
Yeah, I mean, I'm

old enough to remember I would like log it on a notepad. But anyway, so my daughter was born, I don't know, there's something I think when you have children, just something hormonal, like you just don't want to leave the house. Seriously, so she was born, I stopped running with people, I stopped running outside, I bought this like cheap treadmill from Academy, like a $300 treadmill, and I'm trying to run like, you know, 60, 70 miles on this thing.

Chris Detzel (18:57)
Yeah, I didn't ever do that.

Mani Alavi (19:22)
Uh, meanwhile, like, uh, on a treadmill, on a treadmill. Yeah. Yeah. I just didn't want to leave the house for some reason. Um, and, always leaving an incline zero, which is a bad idea. Don't ever do that. If you're running on a treadmill, try to vary it up a little bit. Um, and then, um, I remember one time I was trying to do these interval workouts on the treadmill. Um, meanwhile, I have a stressful job and there's other stresses, baby, lack of sleep, all of these things. I'm probably not eating well. I'm gaining a few pounds.

Chris Detzel (19:23)
treadmill? Okay. Yeah. But you're still running.

Mani Alavi (19:51)
And I just, boom, my knee just, like, I just feel like a pop. And I'm like, oh my gosh. During an interval workout, like trying to do like these, I don't know, like 800 meters on the treadmill, know, 800 meters is, you know, is a half a mile. So you can do that on a treadmill set on miles. And I just, man, I just stopped the workout, so much effusion, just so much swelling in my knee. I'm like, okay.

Chris Detzel (19:57)
Do you what I'm?

Okay.

Mani Alavi (20:20)
This is not good. know, and I followed the, you know, I'm a doctor, so I know better. I know what to do. I don't need to go see an expert. I followed the rice method and you know, rice, you know, you've heard of the rice. Pneumonic has been invalidated on so many levels, not that. So, you know, rice and then I would let it calm down and come right back and it would get worse. And I basically just caused more damage.

Chris Detzel (20:38)
and validate it.

Yeah.

Mani Alavi (20:48)
What

should have been probably a three week injury turned into an almost a two year injury. Meanwhile, I lost so much fitness. gained so much weight. I lost my, I don't know, man. mean, probably 30 pounds. Yeah, 30 pounds. Yeah, I mean, I got.

Chris Detzel (20:54)
Dang.

How much weight is your game?

Okay? Yeah.

Then you probably started

feeling a little bit depressed and down and out and things, no? Yeah.

Mani Alavi (21:12)
I felt awful. mean, I also

like almost gave up on the whole thing. Like, you know, so if anyone's listening to this, you have an injury, please do not give up. I thought you'll get through it. mean, you know, one, would say my advice to you is one, don't give up. Number two, seek like professionals. Like I'm an ER doctor, you know, like I can deal with emergencies, but I am not a physical therapist. I'm not. And I'm certainly not.

Chris Detzel (21:22)
You'll get through it, most likely.

Mani Alavi (21:41)
I'm not a person who should be treating myself. So go seek professionals, whatever resources you want to find. And then for me, think the thing that really helped me was this frame of reference, because I could have easily given up on the whole thing. I had a reasonably good running career at that point. No one's going to fault me for just doing what I'm supposed to do.

Chris Detzel (21:50)
sure.

Kiffin' up.

Mani Alavi (22:09)
as a middle-aged American, right? And even then, I don't think I was like the most unfit person, like if I walk into a room, like no one's going, my gosh, you So no one's ever gonna point out, hey, Monty, you are a different version of yourself. But it was this frame of reference. I just remember like being fit, and now I remember being, now I'm like unfit. So like, there's a huge difference, you know, like in just your temperament and your mood and your.

the way you process information. And I mean, not to go on a tangent here, but I think a lot of that just, think having a good frame of reference comes down to being active when you're younger. Most pediatricologists recommend 60 minutes of physical activity for children, minimum. A majority of American kids don't get that. I just happened to be alive during a time where...

Chris Detzel (22:51)
Yeah.

Yeah. Minimum.

Mani Alavi (23:04)
you know, being physically active was your form of entertainment. And I just really enjoyed it. So I just having that frame of reference. I think like, you know, when I tell my patients, hey, be more physically active, eat the right foods, etc. If they don't have that frame of reference, it's really hard to kind of say, okay, what does this mean? But I think I think that's what really helped me. I just I couldn't remember when I was fit. And then I could remember sitting on the couch and

Chris Detzel (23:07)
Yeah, that's right.

Mani Alavi (23:33)
And I don't want to dig at the cowboy fan, but watching the Cowboys game or whatever I'm supposed to be doing at middle age.

Chris Detzel (23:39)
It's hard to do right now.

You know, it's a good point because I think about when I was a kid, I was outside all the time. We were playing games like, you know, make up games like flashlight. And so, you know, basically it's in the dark and we'd go hide. It's like hide and seek. But if you flash at the light, then you're caught. So you're always running around trying to go from one place to another. And it was just always activity, always outside, you know, playing tackle the man with the football or whatever. Right. So it's just making stuff up.

and just going out there and doing that. And we didn't have the video games or the iPhones or nothing. We didn't have any of that. We had a TV that we had to watch Channel 4, 8, 11, 33, 21, et cetera. That was it. And cartoons weren't on until Saturday morning kind of thing. it's a changing world. And we're distracted by a lot of other things besides this physical activity. And you may make a really good point.

Mani Alavi (24:20)
Mm-hmm.

It is, yeah.

Chris Detzel (24:37)
And I love how you did that. a couple of questions, we'll get into kind of this, I would say medical, but more of this healthy kind of thinking. But, you know, your comebacks is kind of remarkable when you think of like what you've already accomplished. You've run some marathons under three hours now after the fact of kind of gaining weight, stopping the injury and that kind of stuff. You know, what do you think is kind of pushing you to do some of that? You know, what, what made you just decide? Let's talk about

What made you decide to start getting back active again? Was it that frame of reference you had and what you start doing?

Mani Alavi (25:12)
Yeah, honestly, yeah, it's a frame of reference. You know, I think you're just a better version of yourself when you're fit and healthy. You know, I don't want to sound like a judgmental person, but when you're not, you're just a different version of yourself. know, you're a better whatever, whatever metrics in life that matter to you, whether it's being a husband, a father, employee, whatever your passions are, the healthier you are, the fitter you are, the more

Chris Detzel (25:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mani Alavi (25:43)
You know, the more, again, there's all these terms out there, but we are not destined to be obese and have high blood pressure and diabetes. There's a term for this and we can talk about that. But basically, it's about the life you wanna live and how you wanna live that.

Chris Detzel (26:07)
Yeah.

Mani Alavi (26:10)
and the creatures we are, we're humans. We were evolved to be physically active and eat human food, is, no it is, mean, low caloric, highly nutritious foods. And like to your point, we are also designed to be connected. We are social pack animals, you know? As like, you you and I grew up in a time where we would get bored if we were inside the house, right?

Chris Detzel (26:18)
You

Mani Alavi (26:39)
Like as a human, right, we're wired to, you know, consume calories, conserve energy and not be bored, right? Let's just say those three things, you know, we'll take reproduction of those things out of it. But if you put a human just in front of a wall, right, we call that solitary confinement. They may go insane after a while, that's torture, you know, the Geneva Convention has rules against that, etc., etc. But you put a screen in front of them, they will never be bored.

Chris Detzel (27:08)
Yeah.

Mani Alavi (27:08)
And so

all that to be said is that, you know, there is a disconnect between some of the things that are around us right now and the way we're living. So as an organism, I mean, you know. So I don't know if I answered your question, but mostly I would say.

You're gonna be a better version of yourself the healthier you are, the more fit you are. You're gonna set a better example for your family, for your kids. You're gonna be a better employee. You're gonna be healthier and happier. For me, it was that frame of reference. And maybe I was just lucky to be alive during a time where you could live like that. It's a little bit more challenging perhaps for kids now, I don't know.

You know, there's all these great books out there like the Anxious Generation and some other ones where they talk about social media and screens and so forth and how like a lot of that is kind of leading to some issues for us. But, sorry, what was your question?

Chris Detzel (28:17)
No, I think

that was really good. I don't know that you completely answered it. I mean, you answered kind of the why you got back into it. Can you describe like a, what you started doing to really start being active again?

Mani Alavi (28:28)
man, it was so boring.

So first of all, I had to fire myself as my provider. I went to physical therapy, man, I love physical therapy. had a I love physical therapy. So I went to physical therapy, and then I would do these exercises, man, so boring by yourself. Doing these lunges and Bulgarian split squats and getting you know, you're, you know,

Chris Detzel (28:34)
Yeah,

Mani Alavi (28:55)
Tendons and muscles back strong, you first you got to be able to handle the load And then just kind of gradual honestly, you just have to kind of Just basically Approach the return like very slowly, you know I would do short walks then runs and kind of combine it with strength training and mobility work You know, you know, you know, it also kind of taught me a little bit about setbacks are very temporary

And then, and you know, was just, it was less about returning to where I was, but more about kind of just rediscovering the joy of movement, honestly.

Chris Detzel (29:25)
Yeah, that's true.

Well, like you said, it.

And for you, the setback was a little longer because you were your own doctor.

Mani Alavi (29:38)
man, Certainly, yeah, that was definitely a...

Chris Detzel (29:43)
We all

do that though. A doctor trying to be his own doctor, but then us not even doctors being our own doctors, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Mani Alavi (29:49)
Yeah, and then just not catastrophizing also the injury, you know?

Because I think like, you you get an injury and you're like, my God, I will never be able to run again. That's not true, you know? You can always make a comeback. And you know, this...

Chris Detzel (30:05)
Yeah. Well, it depends,

you know, look, it does depend on the injury to how long it might be, but, you know, in general, I've seen most people think they were done with running three years later. They'd go through all this rehab or whatever, and then all of a sudden they're out running again. You know, I can name several people. And I think that, you know, the key really at the end of the day is exercise. Just get out there and walk, jog, cycle, swim, I don't know, whatever, and be consistent at it. Just, you know, that's...

Mani Alavi (30:27)
Yeah.

And it's a very emotional

thing, I think, because a big part of my social life is also my running, even back then. And so you're disconnected from your friends. And I remember I just didn't want anything to do with people, like my friends who were running while I was injured, because it was just a bad reminder that you have this FOMO, you're missing out. Nowadays might be even worse with social media apps and Strava and so forth. Maybe get off of those and just, man, just focus on kind of

Chris Detzel (30:38)
Yeah, same.

Mani Alavi (31:02)
relearning how to move if you have a big injury. It depends on what the injury is, of course, and its timing. And then also kind of tackling it early. Again, I probably did all the wrong things and I made this injury so much worse and it prolonged. One, I think was...

Chris Detzel (31:20)
Give me two wrong things you think you did.

Mani Alavi (31:26)
So I think generally for like tendinopathies and tendons and so forth, tendons like to be loaded. They like to get stronger. They don't like to be inactive. So I think what I would do is I would go from periods of complete inactivity to bring down the fusion, bring down the swelling to, I'm going back to like 60 miles, 70 mile weeks. So that was the number one thing. So yeah, these cycles of inactivity. And two, I think was not being patient enough.

Chris Detzel (31:45)
Okay. Just boom.

That's crazy. Yeah.

Mani Alavi (31:56)
and wanting to do too much too quickly. I think that pretty much was my fault. Not to mention all the other ways I was kind of coping with the stress of like not being able to run, something I've always been able to do. My body was so out of sorts. You know, like when you taper, like you're just kind of feeling weird. I was just like kind of a different version of myself. you know, I probably dealt with that by, you know,

some lifestyle choices that probably prolonged the whole process, which is gaining weight and so forth. So yeah, I'm pretty proud of myself for not giving up on the whole thing. Yeah, so, but.

Chris Detzel (32:39)
Obviously. I think that,

no, I think that's awesome. you know.

coming back stronger than ever. It sounds like, now you're doing longer distance and everything else. But thinking about kind of that injury piece, you know, a lot of people kind of, and you're a faculty physician at UT Southwestern. So from your medical standpoint, when you think about misconceptions around running, you know, it's bad for your knees. It's bad. I mean, somebody say, see, you had a knee injury, you know, that kind of stuff. What are some of those misconceptions and are they true to some degree or not?

things like that. I'm curious.

Mani Alavi (33:19)
You know, it's so funny. think

the number one, like you said, is running will ruin your knees. know, hands down, that is the most persistent myth out there. Many people believe that running will lead to... And I think when people say running is bad for your knees, I think what they're trying to say is that it'll lead to arthritis, osteoarthritis specifically, or some kind of analogy to like the tires of a car and they're going to wear down.

Chris Detzel (33:27)
Harpsichord.

Mani Alavi (33:48)
Like there's been so much, there's been a lot of studies published. I mean, if you look at arthritis care and research, I mean, suggest that runners actually have lower rates of knee osteoarthritis compared to non-runners. You know, running strengthens the muscles around the knees, improves joint lubrication, maintains a healthy weight, all of which protect joint health. mean, osteoarthritis, a part of it is genetic. So some people would say, hey, the counterpoint to that is, hey, I knew a guy who ran a bunch of marathons and he had osteoarthritis.

Well, part of that is genetic. Yes, that can happen. But you do decrease your chances by having a normal BMI, by moving that joint. Again, that's how our joints preserve themselves. Again, also people associate knee pain with running, especially when they first start up or ramp up too quickly, that there's some kind of structural issues with the knee. And that's usually not the case.

The problem is not the running itself. It's usually either inadequate strength or doing too much too soon or maybe even poor form. I would also add that 100 % yeah, I mean BMI. Yeah, BMI is definitely Yeah, and then I would also add that you know The other misconception I think is that running is only for the young or naturally athletic people. That's not true, you know

Chris Detzel (34:54)
Do you think weight can have a big part of what's wrong with people's needs? BMI, that's what that is.

Mani Alavi (35:14)
Running can, you know, be adapted for any age or fitness level. I mean, you see runners in the 70s and 80s achieving personal best, you know, we've had Tommy Hughes on the show. set five decades of sub 230 marathons, you know, at eight. Yeah, I mean, you know, so that's I think, you know, that's also another misconception. I would say

Chris Detzel (35:15)
Great.

Dang.

Mani Alavi (35:44)
I would just add two more things. like one, you don't need perfect biomechanics to run. obviously ideal form helps, you know, but you know, most runners can improve their form with time, maybe with coaching and awareness. and then more miles does not always equal better fitness. you know, quality over quantity, over training is a real issue. You know, I'm guilty of that.

Chris Detzel (35:50)
I sure don't have it.

Mani Alavi (36:10)
So I would say the takeaway is your knees don't fear running. They fear inactivity. Your knees do not fear running. They fear inactivity. That's what I would say.

Chris Detzel (36:20)
Yeah, you if you have to start slow and most you should start slow. I mean, I remember when I first started running, it was. I would run walk a mile every day for five days. And then my, one of my goals was on Friday, I want to be able to jog that entire mile without stopping. Right. Then over time, I had to kind of bring that up. Now I made some mistakes. Kind of what you said is in the beginning was I was running six miles as fast as I could every day. So, you know,

Mani Alavi (36:48)
Yeah.

Chris Detzel (36:49)
Don't do that, you know, but.

Mani Alavi (36:51)
Which

is not counterintuitive, right? I mean, like you want to run fast, so why not run fast every single day? It turns out that's not how, yeah, it turns out that's not the way to do it. It's kind like me, who knew a marathon was so long, right?

Chris Detzel (36:54)
Yeah, to me it made sense, you know, and it's not. So something that...

Only my most is 10 miles and so I'm gonna go run a marathon, you know, during training. So one of the things that we get a lot here in Texas is the heat, you know, and so I've always said this and you're a medical person and you know all this stuff and you just tell me, but is that if you can train over the summer and hardcore train-ish, you know, like it doesn't, but at least train quite a bit, you know, in October, November, December.

Mani Alavi (37:11)
Yeah.

yeah.

Chris Detzel (37:35)
you know, you're going to, in general, you're going to feel like you're just super speedy, you know, because, because I remember last year, I think it was, let's just call it year before since it's 2025 now is, I was, I ran three half marathons and I struggled, you know, through, I paced one at 155 and I thought I can barely get through this. mean, it's 80, 80 degrees and a hundred percent humidity, you know, and it's just only getting hotter from there, you know, and

Mani Alavi (37:39)
sure.

Nice.

Yeah.

Chris Detzel (38:03)
I thought, man, I'm really out of shape. I wasn't out of shape. I actually ran a PR in September when I went to run a downhill, 128. So for me, was like, okay, the summertime or heat acclimation is a good thing because it really just helps. You tell me what you think about all

Mani Alavi (38:17)
for sure. Yeah.

I mean, man, you know, we geek out about this topic and other topics so much. So you're talking to the wrong person. We can talk about this for hours. But man, heat acclimation, honestly, is an incredible tool for runners or any endurance athletes. It's always it's it's usually misunderstood or overlooked by recreational athletes. And maybe another misconception I can add is when some people say, hey,

Chris Detzel (38:28)
Okay.

Mani Alavi (38:47)
I'm just not good at running at the heat, right? I totally disagree with that. There's so much science behind it. If you're listening to this and you happen to be a homo sapien, you can adapt to the heat, period. If you're a different species, I'm not sure, but as humans, we are remarkably, have this remarkable ability to adapt to And it's not just about running at the heat, it's about training your body to perform under these stresses. So here's what happens, I mean, if you want to talk about the nerdy stuff.

Chris Detzel (38:49)
Yeah. Who is?

Mani Alavi (39:16)
Heat training increases your plasma volume. It decreases your lower, yeah, so about 50, so your blood is about 55 % plasma volume, the liquid portion and 45 % other things like red blood cells and white blood cells and so forth. So that portion of your blood actually goes up, the liquid portion of your blood. Your core body temperature drops down, which lowers your heart rate at a given effort. It improves your sweat response.

Chris Detzel (39:19)
Mm, right, honey.

Mani Alavi (39:43)
And they don't only help you in the heat, like your example, they also help your body be more efficient even in cooler condition. So, you know, yeah, you know, you've heard the whole thing about heat training is like the poor man's altitude training, you know, 100. Well, we're talking about two different things. You know, you're giving yourself a hypoxic stimuli when you're on high altitude and you're

Chris Detzel (39:52)
That makes sense.

Kind of, is that true or?

Mani Alavi (40:12)
producing more red blood cells. This indirectly according to Dr. Minson and so forth, what happens is your plasma volume will go up and you will produce more red blood cells. but we've, we had Jeff Cunningham and he turned around and he said high altitude training is a rich man's heat acclimation training. but again, again, so,

You got to do it, of course, in a very safe way.

Chris Detzel (40:43)
If you've

ever ran a mountain race, been in Colorado or somewhere like that and ran up, it is different. mean, I remember going out, my wife and I went to Leadville and she ran the marathon, I ran the half. Of course, I've never done that long back then. And I remember just going up the stairs at this hotel and I couldn't breathe. I'm like, what is going on? So yeah, I did all right during the race, but I thought I was in trouble, you know, because of the, you know, but anyways, I digress a little.

Mani Alavi (40:46)
huh.

Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah,

no, but to your point though, you want to bring a heat load in. Like Dr. Minstin's protocol, it's so much time under heat. So in the wintertime, like it's cold right now, you might need to do passive heat, which is usually things like dry saunas and other ways of kind of inducing heat to your body. But yeah.

Chris Detzel (41:39)
or run indoors,

you know, if you want.

Mani Alavi (41:41)
Run indoors with

multiple layers, yeah, if you can tolerate that, absolutely. again, studies show post-work heat exposure can deliver many of the same benefits as running in hot conditions. So when you don't have access to the heat outside, that's one way of doing it. But you gotta, of course, it in very safe way. Listen to your body. It's about adapting and not pushing through the danger zone and kind of knowing some of the...

early signs of heat-related illnesses and so forth. yeah, I mean, you've heard the story, you know, as humans, they say we're perseverance hunters. You know, we chase, you know, wild game in the hottest part of the day. That's our environmental niche. And we exhaust these animals, you know, we're quadrupeds, know, four-legged animals have to pants to cool off. We sweat, you know, and no other animal sweats as efficiently as we do.

Even horses, you know, they sweat. There's these races between horse and man. And when it's above a certain degree Fahrenheit, the humans always win. So yeah, yeah, yeah. We sweat and horses do sweat, actually. They're just not as efficient as we are. But anyway, I would say he.

Chris Detzel (42:47)
How about apes? Do apes sweat? What's the...

Mani Alavi (42:58)
heat training, especially that's another reason why I love Dallas, the weather is so great here in the summertime, we get a lot of free, we get a lot of free heat that people have to pay for. So there you go. That's

Chris Detzel (43:03)
A lot of heat.

Yeah.

So let's

get back to talking about you a little bit from, you and I appreciate that insight. you know, I was just kind of curious is, you you mentioned that one is you're running Boston coming up in April. Is this your first time or have you done it before? What's, okay.

Mani Alavi (43:15)
Yeah.

No, no, no, I'm obsessed with that race. I love that race.

Yeah, no, I try to run it. The problem is Boston doesn't love me. it's always my slowest time. Like last year I did 306 there. It was hot though. It was a hot day. Yeah, it wasn't bad. I was pretty acclimated to the heat back then. yeah, it was very sunny.

Chris Detzel (43:36)
It's a tough one.

Yeah. That's still pretty impressive.

Mani Alavi (43:52)
You know, the air temperature wasn't actually that bad. was like 60 degrees, but that sun, man, that sun in Massachusetts just bakes you. There's not much leaf cover in April. And it just, man, it just will destroy you. hopefully this year, three, yeah. will be, yeah, so, yeah, this will, yeah, exactly, yeah. And then Tokyo will be my fifth star. I'm not, again, like I said, I'm...

Chris Detzel (44:07)
So how many times have you gone? Okay, this would be three or four.

You've got Tokyo coming

up.

Mani Alavi (44:20)
I got Tokyo coming up so I'll see if I want to race that or not but I definitely will be racing Boston. put it that way.

Chris Detzel (44:27)
Do know Andy? Andy,

I forgot his last name. He runs with the White Rock Co-op group. Yeah, British guy, yeah. Yeah, he's going. Yeah, he's going to Tokyo. I don't think he's doing Boston. He already did Boston. When he goes to Tokyo, it'll be a seventh star.

Mani Alavi (44:35)
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, is he going to Tokyo? Yeah, yeah, I know that. Yeah, Yeah, cool. Awesome. Nice.

Okay.

Seventh. Six, six, okay, yeah, Gotcha, gotcha, awesome.

Chris Detzel (44:50)
Sixth, my bad. Yeah.

And he is trying to go to Australia for the seventh.

Mani Alavi (44:57)
Well

actually there are going to be more stars so you're correct. So yeah. Yeah.

Chris Detzel (44:59)
Yeah, well, there will be.

This year, I guess, is kind of the seventh for Australia to be the seventh, right? So, yeah. Yeah, cool. Do you have a goal in Boston?

Mani Alavi (45:06)
Yeah, yeah. Awesome,

Man, I don't know. I'd love to do a sub three in Boston soon. My goal in general for a marathon in the next year or so is a sub 250. We'll see if that happens. 255, yeah. was, yeah. But I love to, I was going for a sub 250 then, so I wasn't. But yeah, I'd love to, yeah. It depends. It depends on the weather. It depends on how you feel. It depends on your training.

Chris Detzel (45:24)
Okay. Is your best 255? Is that? Okay.

stuff happens.

Mani Alavi (45:42)
depends on your mindset, honestly. Boston is a very tough race because it starts downhill and then you, first of all, it's such an exciting weekend, so you're not really getting much rest. You're seeing all your friends and you're walking around and then you take a bus to the start line, as you know, and then you're just waiting there. It's super exciting, but you're spending glycogen while you're waiting and all that kind of stuff, so it's not like the per-

the best perfect conditions and then you run downhill which your quads are destroyed. Yeah, 10 a.m. Yeah, the elites I think started a little bit like 10, 15 minutes earlier and then the first wave, the red wave will start at like 10 a.m. and then 10, 15 and stuff like that. But then like yeah, your quads are destroyed and then you get these massive hills. They're actually not that bad, but it's just such a, like from mile 17 to 21 or so.

Chris Detzel (46:16)
And it starts at 10 or 11 o'clock, depending on when you, you know, it's just later than a usual start. It's just different. Yeah.

Mani Alavi (46:41)
You get these rollers, they're pretty challenging. then once you get to Boston Commons, if you get to Boston Commons and it's like mile 21, 21.5 or so, and you're still able to move your legs, it's gonna be a good day. If you get there and you're destroyed, you're just gonna be so deflated.

I did some of my training in Boston. I would go to Boston Commons and watch the Boston Marathon. And I remember, man, there's so much carnage at that spot right there. Because you've just finished, you you've heard of Heartbreak Hill. It's actually not the worst hill. But then you get there, man. But I got to tell you, I love Boston. I just I'm obsessed with that. I don't know who said it. I think it was Emma Bates or someone said I'm obsessed with the Boston Marathon. So I'll steal her phrase.

I will continue doing that race until they tell me I can't do it.

Chris Detzel (47:36)
Well, if you qualify, then you'll be good. you know, my wife,

I'm very familiar with Boston. My wife's running 11 times going on her 12th in a row. Right. And so, um, I've gone, I don't, I don't run marathons much anymore. Uh, I did think about from our 50th this next year is maybe, maybe I'll run a marathon. I don't know, but you know, it's so much training time effort, you know, for me, it's a lot, but I love the atmosphere of the Boston marathon. I get to go and run the 5k and it's, and uh,

Mani Alavi (47:42)
wow.

Yeah.

Chris Detzel (48:05)
You know, they have 10,000 people just in the 5K on that Saturday and elite runners in that 5K, which is really cool. I don't what happened there, but,

Mani Alavi (48:12)
Yeah, no, it's

a good race, man. It's definitely the highlight of my running year, Yeah.

Chris Detzel (48:22)
Cool man, that's really awesome.

there, so as we kind of wrap this up, is there anybody you want to kind of thank or, you know, kind of give kudos to or anything like that?

Mani Alavi (48:31)
Oh man, so many people. First of all, I gotta give kudos to my kiddos, Parson and Aria, and my wife Ellie, man, they put up with me. First of all, also just the running community here. I think you run with the White Rock group, man, there's such good, DRC, mean, the White Rock people, they're good people. DRC, I have a lot of affection for them.

Chris Detzel (48:49)
DRC, White Rock, I've been running with Jose.

Mani Alavi (49:00)
Matt Taylor is their main coach, he's my buddy. Janice and Laura, they're just such great people. The Pegasus people, I don't know if you run with them, amazing people.

Chris Detzel (49:05)
Jazz is great.

One of my guests,

or a couple of my guests do, I think it was, not Aaron, but Travis, I think, runs with them a little bit. won the...

Mani Alavi (49:24)
Yeah, Travis runs with them a little bit.

He also runs with the slots, which I run with. Yeah, yeah, Mimi. Yeah, you've had Mimi on the show. She's amazing. Yeah, I mean, so the Pegasus folks, man, I love running with those guys and girls, some speedy folks, you know, their main coaches, Fonz and Jill, good people, man, all those guys. The slots, man, that's just...

Chris Detzel (49:32)
then Mimi Smith runs with them.

It's kind of the speedy folks, you know.

Mani Alavi (49:52)
just amazing a core group of super fast slots like the animal you know that the mammal the the South African mammal South American mammal I'm sorry yeah

Chris Detzel (49:56)
The sloths, they're super fast. Yeah. I know what it is.

kind of

like the opposite, right? You know, they're sloths, but they run two 20s.

Mani Alavi (50:07)
man, they're so fast. So fast, so friendly.

know, Jennifer Pope, you should have her on the show. Matt Campbell. Yeah, I can give you their contact information. Yeah, Matt Campbell, man, he is just an amazing guy, amazing runner. You all my friends, Matt Barron and, you know, Jess and Jodie and all these people, man. Just so many people to name. Landon.

Chris Detzel (50:13)
Yeah, I should have heard both of them. So yeah, please.

Mani Alavi (50:36)
You know, Kaylin Moore, man, she's like such a good friend to me. I want to thank her. I mean, just the list goes on and on. I feel like I'm forgetting a lot of people, but man, just so many good running groups. Like I said, I personally think Dallas has the best running community out there. You know, just so many good people. You mentioned Mimi Smith. She's just...

Chris Detzel (51:00)
It's

funny because you think about how many running groups we have. So I have this community called DFW Running Community, but I also have this website called DFWrunninggroup.com. And I have this one of the highest kind of pages that I have is running groups in my area. And I literally have like 25 running groups on there. And I still don't have even close to all of them, right? There's probably 50.

You know, people are like, well, you forgot this one, you forgot that one. I was like, I don't know, man. Like, just can't keep up, you know.

Mani Alavi (51:33)
Yeah, I mean,

there's definitely a decent amount. the cool thing is there's different paces, different groups, or different abilities and different goals, you know? And so there's some groups that are a little bit more social, more that are kind of performance based. But yeah, so some.

Chris Detzel (51:42)
Yeah.

you can find

one for whatever you're looking for, you know? And so that's the beauty. Monty, this has been really great. I really appreciate your time and hearing about your journey and just some of your expertise that, you know, that we can give to the DFW Running community and whoever else is listening. So thank you everyone for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk. Please rate and review us and tell others about us. And Monty, thank you so much.

Mani Alavi (51:55)
for sure.

Yeah, man, my pleasure. Yeah, good job, man. Keep up the good work, man. Really keep spreading the message about DFW and the running community here. And yeah, I'll send you a bunch of people I think you should have on your show. Yeah. All right, my friend, have a good one.

Chris Detzel (52:28)
Please do. Yeah, no man, I appreciate it. Thanks everyone, take care.

Bye.