Finding Speed in the Pandemic: Jennifer Pope's Path to Elite Running

Jennifer Pope: DFW Running Talk
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Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] Welcome to DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel. So let's get started.

All right. Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel, and today I have special guest Jennifer Pope. Jennifer, how are you?

Jennifer Pope: I'm doing great. How are you doing?

Chris Detzel: Good. I saw your name as Jenny Jennifer. I was like I'll just call it Jennifer because it's what's on the screen, but is that how it is?

Jennifer's good? Okay. Yeah. Good. So you're, to me, you're very popular in the running community and you're really fast and you've done a lot of awesome things in the running. I would love to get to know a little bit about you, who you are, how you got started with running. How about that?

Let's start with that. I

Jennifer Pope: honestly have, I'm more of a, somewhat of a newer runner and comparatively to some other people who've run in college or run even in younger. I did not start running until the pandemic.

Chris Detzel: No way.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, I [00:01:00] ran like for fun on a weekend. I would randomly jump into a half marathon, but I grew up playing soccer.

And I That makes sense. Yeah. I played soccer actually five nights a week. And it was up until the pandemic, they closed down all the soccer plays. So for a while, I was just, I wasn't really doing too much. I just going out for a run, just you're locked in the house for those two weeks and then two weeks became three weeks and it's okay, I'm, I need to do something.

I'm not exercising like I used to. Let's go for a run. And again, I always ran a little bit. When you look at like times comparatively, you think you're just naturally fast back then, but so much different when you start like training, but. But no, I started just running like almost every day for a bit, just because it was something to get some type of exercise.

And then there was something like train for a 5K each week and you keep improving your 5K time each week. And this is all virtual. So I was just like, okay, here's a little silly challenge I can do. And it's

Chris Detzel: crazy.

Jennifer Pope: I started [00:02:00] training or not even think you could probably call it training then. It was more like just literally trying to improve a 5K time every single week.

Chris Detzel: Doing what every new runner would do, I'm sorry doing what every new runner would do

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, just

Chris Detzel: go out and run fast every weekend.

Jennifer Pope: Yep. Yep, pretty much and so and then honestly I got more I got more compet not competitive, I got more serious about it when I ran. Finally, things were starting to open up especially outdoor races.

Those are the only things that were opening at the time because it was outside. And I went to one of the Plano Pacers races, if you're familiar. They have them every month. They're great for the community. I love them. I still use them for workouts. I just signed

Chris Detzel: up this year, by the way, with them, and I'm going to start going as, yeah.

Jennifer Pope: Good. Good. I think I've been, I think I've signed up now. Oh my goodness. It's been years. I just renew it. It's so easy because it's cheap. It's fun. They're great people, but I ran there and there was a girl there who was actually really fast. And I was like, Wow this person is [00:03:00] incredible and then so I was like I wonder how she just got so fast and I met the people and over time I was like they're talking about training and I didn't even know what a tempo was versus like intervals or, absolutely no idea.

Of course, that's okay. So I did again what any really smart person would do and I Googled. Step back is I had seen she had run some marathons and she did, she, I think she broke the tape at Cowtown. I was really impressed. I Who is this person's name? I'm interested now.

Maddie Stier. Do you know who that is?

Chris Detzel: No. No. Okay.

Jennifer Pope: I still run with her today. I, we run, just, actually, we just ran this morning. But she was she's very fast and she was just impressed me immediately from afar. You're like the creeper who doesn't really know who the person is yet.

So you're in with the group. But no, from there I went on Google and I downloaded. I saw she ran a sub three marathon and I was like, wow, like that is insane. I wonder if I could do something like that. And so I just went and the marathon plan I found there was a [00:04:00] few like from running world or just those random, here's a calendar and they throw some workouts at you.

The workout, the one that I thought seemed doable to me was literally a men's health magazine, sub five. There's sub three marathon plan and it was because it didn't have use your HR to decide your paces. All this

Chris Detzel: other

Jennifer Pope: weird stuff. Everything else is so complicated. So I chose this plan. I just want to run.

Yeah. Yeah. Got it. But I chose this plan and it seemed to work. I was like following them, do mile repeats, do this, do that. And I signed up for the Irving marathon was the first one that I could say I actually trained for. And that was still, that had to have been, what year was that, 20, 21, so that was the first one, and I was like, I'm racing this, and I did great. I had a 250 something. And so I was like, wow, this training is, it's working together over time. If you were to look at that first oh, [00:05:00] I'm sorry, I have to, I don't know why my computer just went from 100 to 18%.

If you were,

Chris Detzel: hold on, let me just. Yeah, no worries. I'll just edit this out.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, sorry. I don't know what just happened.

Chris Detzel: As a matter of fact, I can hit pause.

Jennifer Pope: It's weird. This computer must be getting old because when I started I made sure it had a hundred and now it says sixteens.

Chris Detzel: It happens.

Jennifer Pope: But, so I apologize.

So I went and, so I did that marathon, but when I started that plan, I remember it, it had some paces to do your mile repeats. And it was like a if you're expecting to do a sub three marathon, you should be aiming for, I think it was like a six minute pace per mile repeats.

And at the beginning of that plan, I could not get a single one at that pace. And I was just like, there's no way possible. It's like, why am I even doing this plan? It was silly, but I just, It was still fun and, I enjoyed the training. So I was like, all right, I'm just going to keep going and see what happens.

And then as you keep going, it's obviously you improve [00:06:00] and it kept, you start to realize wow, this I'm starting to get it. It's starting to feel easier. And then race day. I raced it like you'd expect very positive splits for positive people. My first mile was like a 6. 07 or something insane.

And then the last miles were like 6. 50 something.

Chris Detzel: Exactly. But

Jennifer Pope: I got there. Those are some things you learn along the way, maybe, hold back in the beginning.

Chris Detzel: Love that story. And we'll continue that in a minute, but I want to go all the way back to soccer. So tell me about that. So you, were you playing soccer and the reason I want to know is because to me, soccer players are very good at running in general and they become very, or can become very good.

It's just a very good, did you start in high school or, tell me about that little journey.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah. I started playing soccer when I was like four years old. Okay. I never really played competitively and I don't know if it just differents from where I grew up. I grew up in Michigan. We had some competitive soccer and but I was, I always played just recreational leagues.

I did [00:07:00] play in high school. But I basically played all my life, and then when I moved to Texas, I found there's a place in Richardson that I played a lot of the indoor at but actually, I played in Addison, and then outdoor was usually on Sundays, and outdoor was my favorite, because I'm a run I could run, I was always outside mid, and they send you down the field, and you run, and I was always good at that, the, just running the entire game.

Chris Detzel: It, so there was nothing there that just thought, Oh, you, you ran overall and we'll get to that later, 236, 24 marathon. But there was nothing there that just said, Hey, you didn't go to college for running or college for soccer or you didn't do any of that.

Play, I

Jennifer Pope: ran cross country in high school, but I, I always feel bad to this day, like with my coach because. I probably just never took it seriously. It was about hanging out with friends. And I remember what my coach actually messaged me when I, after my, one of my Houston marathons and it was just comical because I didn't [00:08:00] even run a 5k as fast as I was running a marathon now, and it's just.

It was just fun back then. I just don't know if maybe I didn't have the same potential back then, or I just didn't, not that you don't try, but it was just like, it wasn't on my radar. You're young. You're just, you're doing it because you're hanging out with friends. Trying to get through life and

Chris Detzel: hang out.

And it was just a

Jennifer Pope: different drive. Yeah. It's not to say I wasn't going as quick as I could on race day, it was just, maybe it took longer to develop. I don't actually know, but total transformation, I guess you could say.

Chris Detzel: No it's amazing it's, it, I look back and I always think, when I was, I'm almost 50 when I was 20, or, I ran cross country and was, like that, but if I had the same mindset that I had today than I did then definitely I would have been a thousand times better.

Who knows, what it could have been, but. Your story is really pretty cool because you get really fast, you get fast, really, you're running. Under a sub three marathon and you're, I don't know if it was your first marathon, but 2021 and it was, you only had a couple of years, so [00:09:00] let's go back to that.

So now you did the soccer, but you only did that recreationally, but you kept that going. And then you started running and getting into the marathon. What, then what started out?

Jennifer Pope: So I actually have ran, I did run some marathons before. It was like, I actually ran the Dallas marathon like 12 years ago.

But it was just another one of those, yeah, I did. And it was just one of those things where it was almost like, oh, you're doing it. Okay. I'll do it. And it was I, again, I never trained for it. I just played soccer. And then occasionally I would run on a Saturday, like a, here's a long run, which again was probably like.

I don't even know. I couldn't even tell you. Probably like 14 miles max of whatever it was. And I know, I don't remember my exact time, but it was like 340 something? 330? Don't even know. But that's still pretty

Chris Detzel: great.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, so there's probably some, natural talents in there somewhere, but obviously you don't really know what you can even do when you're not training is a whole different, you just really want to push [00:10:00] yourself more and then you don't even know what you're capable of.

If you would have told me even, when I started during the pandemic, I would have laughed at you if, if you could say you 236 marathon. Absolutely not. Like that pace is insane. But if you think about it and then just one marathon. You try to keep taking off a little bit of time often, and then before you know it, you're like let's go for it, cause the, it was the Olympic trials time was what I had wanted to attempt, obviously.

Cause I felt like I was close enough to where you might as well go for it. I might miss it, but yeah why not try it? So it doesn't hurt anything to try, but I, obviously, I actually did miss it the first time by 15 seconds. I saw that. Indianapolis marathon, yeah. So then, of course, had to try again.

When you're 15 seconds off from your time, you gotta try again. So I just saved some fitness for Tuesday.

Chris Detzel: So we will, I want to talk more about that, but I want to talk about that marathon that you ran under sub three. So you ran that marathon and that was, which marathon was it? Irving. Irving, that's right.

And and you just grabbed a training plan off the internet and said, I'm going to go do it. And [00:11:00] it actually worked. Yeah. So it sounds like there was some success there, which, that's rare. I love the story and it just shows, if you're focused in on a training plan, and obviously it was a good one, you might be able to hit that goal, so what was next after that? Did you start, so when you think about training, did you start running with a group or you started running with that little event that you mentioned? So that's one. And then two, is there like a group or did that help at all or tell me more about that.

Jennifer Pope: I, so I started running the next marathon after that was the Boston marathon.

Cause I'd qualified, I started running with a group. I actually initially. Just showed up one day with Plano Pacer, or not, sorry, not Plano Pacer the Plano Running Club, and then I met some people who now we all run together as they, the group is organically grew into this group called Completely Sloth.

So we run, yeah, we run every, several times a week together. So they, once you start [00:12:00] running with people, it's. I think in my personal opinion, it's a game changer because in a lot of ways, you don't actually ever, if you can get comfortable, not that you're not pushing yourself, but I feel like them pulling me along at some of those workouts where I would have been happy with a pace that was slower, just made all the difference because when you keep pulling, they keep pulling you along.

And before you know it you're like, wow, we're hitting some good splits here. And so without that group, just, and even just the motivation just to get up in the morning and run and get it done. And. They're they're a HUGE difference, and I don't even know if I would actually, once soccer places started reopening and things were changing, I don't know if I would have continued to run as much if I hadn't found such a nice core group of people that kept it going and kept me interested and engaged, or if I would have returned.

I ruined that show, sure, but

Chris Detzel: I did feel like, I feel like community is huge and not just running for sure the relationships you build you learn a lot, not just from speed. Like you said, accountability is a big one, what to wear, what are other people doing to [00:13:00] use for hydration?

Maybe there's a dietician that they see, maybe there's a coach that they know of, hey, they wear these socks or I don't know there's just a lot of little things that. You learn along the way that you just didn't know that can increase your, whether it's speed or just endurance or whatever, and you've already mentioned a few.

I agree it's a game changer. And I'm glad you said that because that one person has said to me, Oh, I always just run alone. And I'm a 210 person. You know what I mean?

Jennifer Pope: Yeah,

Yeah, and it's good to be able to both joke around with people and you're, they're your friends. And of course you can run for two and a half hours with them, just talking about anything.

But at the same time you can also have a bad workout or a day that's maybe not going so well and they help you put it in perspective. a bit too, because you're not going to nail necessarily every workout and some days are going to feel heavier than others. And so it's good to have just a group of people who can also, you know, not only encourage you, but also help you put things in perspective of, they, if they have a bad day or you have a bad day or you can compare and just okay, these are normal.

We're all [00:14:00] training. We're all going to have good races, bad rates. Sometimes it doesn't go according to plan. You shake it off, you go for the next one. So it's good to have those

Chris Detzel: people. When was your next marathon? It was in Indianapolis. It could have been Indianapolis, going from 250 to 236.

No,

Jennifer Pope: After Irving, I ran Boston, and then I ran Houston. Okay. I've done Houston now, twice. But, yeah. Did

Chris Detzel: you do Houston this last week, or no? I did not, no. No, okay. No, I've done it the

Jennifer Pope: full twice, and the half.

Chris Detzel: Okay, I love, I'm more of a half marathon person now, just, the training that it takes and the amount of effort and time you have to put into a marathon for me right now, it's just a lot, so now when did you, or when did you go to Indianapolis?

When was that race?

Jennifer Pope: That would have been 22.

Chris Detzel: 2022?

Jennifer Pope: We're in, we just entered 25. Yeah, I think

A [00:15:00] few years

Chris Detzel: ago. Yeah, it says 2022. So yeah, I'm on your page here. Time's going, it's hard to remember how long this has been. Time flies. There's been a lot of racist sense. But then you went to Indianapolis and you ran a 2. 37. You said you're 15 seconds off.

What is, tell me about your mindset before then. Were you trying to go to the Olympic, or do the Olympic trials? Or was it, then how was the training kind of stuff?

Jennifer Pope: During training, I actually wasn't going for the trials time at all. Dur training, that race was in November, so training is obviously the hottest months of the year.

I, your paces are so far, not so far off, but they're off enough to where, you're adding a good 15 seconds per mile to be able to survive the summer heat and it's still an extremely challenging run. It wasn't until people kept putting it on your radar and just they mentioned it and, I just wasn't really thinking that was even a possibility.

And it wasn't until I had a cold morning in sometime mid September [00:16:00] where I had a workout that was, I think like 14 miles with most of it at MP. And that I really was like, wow, we, the back half of that entire run was sub six pace. And so it was one of those where it's maybe this is possible.

And so I kept thinking about it and then, you don't want to, you don't want to go out there and bonk, but it's like, how can you let that opportunity pass either? Maybe bonking is better than potentially missing it. And 100%. And also going into those few nights before, that race was one of those random days, like the Dallas half this year.

It was super cold the morning before, or sorry, the day before, and super cold like the next day a cold front came through. But for race day, it was like this humid, rainy, and there was like extreme winds. Really? And Absolutely insane wins. Yeah. And so it was rough on that back half of the just getting blown around out there.

It was, it's unfortunate. And what it really was, it was like 15 seconds, but I knew I had it because that was a tough [00:17:00] race. Yeah. It was one of those where you were frustrated because you didn't hit it. But then I had also never won a marathon before. And I was like, this, it's hard to be too upset at the same time.

Oh, you won,

Chris Detzel: you won that marathon.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I guess I didn't know that.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. That's pretty fast. But Indianapolis is pretty popular, too.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, I think it was just a rough year because of the weather. It was tough and people were falling off towards the back because you the miles at 18 to 25 or something was just straight into the wind and it was, like, hitting a wall.

And you still

Chris Detzel: ran a 2. 37. That was the PR, right? No, I had

Jennifer Pope: that. I felt like I had it. No, and it's actually terrible because I think I still had it, but I am not very good at telling time. I'm not very good at doing math in my head when it comes to,

Chris Detzel: when I'm

Jennifer Pope: in the zone. So we had a two pacers that were pacing this OTQ time and both of them fell off.

So there was no more people pacing. And then before I know it, I was actually the [00:18:00] only person, I was like looking around, like even the pace group starts to fall apart, which is natural towards the end of a marathon. People start to just it spaces out a lot more. But I, for some reason, you never do this.

It's so stupid to do this, but I was just like, wow, my watch says I'm going like a five 52 pace, knowing like I had even had like under a bridge. I had this really fast split that I was like, I knew it wasn't right. But I was like, this has to be, I've got to be close. And all I had to do is do some math and those final miles.

And I probably would have been like, Oh, I need to sprint this end. But it was instead, it was like, okay, I just need to finish this. This is really tough. I'm here with the lead biker I just need to finish this. And I know I'm gonna get it in the back of my mind. It wasn't really about, it was just like, I already got this.

I just have to finish strong. So we're not gonna go sprinting again. We're not gonna change anything. Let's finish. And then when I crossed the tape, it was like, wait. I was so happy, but at the same time, I was like, I think I just missed that. I just forgot the time. You

Chris Detzel: know, you get to wear wristbands, that tells you where, [00:19:00] I don't know if you've ever done that before, but there's these wristbands that tell you the exact time you should be at, instead of the pace. It tells you the time. At mile 2, you should be at this. At mile 20, you should be at this. Etcetera.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, I I have a bad habit of tunnel vision when I'm in a race. And I've actually, I've had friends who've, comments is like, You don't remember that one thing on the course?

And I'm like, Not that. I don't know. There was a bridge? I just run. Black everything out. I do the same

Chris Detzel: thing. I do the same thing, not at your level, I just like to when I'm running, just especially racing, just, I don't really see much. I don't hear anybody. If they're like, Oh, Chris.

It's I don't know. I didn't even know you were there. Sorry. Yeah. Especially cause I had music on. And it sounds like a good and a really great marathon one way or another. So did you, when you went into the next one, was the next one kind of say, Hey, I'm going to go in and do this six months.

What was that like knowing that you could get that time? You didn't, so you knew you had to go somewhere else. Yeah, so

Jennifer Pope: I I felt like it was close enough to where I wanted to just keep my fitness and jump into the next [00:20:00] marathon. That was November and then I ended up doing the Houston marathon in Jan, in the beginning of January.

It was like a five week out change. And so I basically took a week of off, basically, I think it was almost all the way off, and then just did some real small stuff and just a few solid workouts in that third week and then re tapered again. And it was, and I did well, and that was the 236 20.

Chris Detzel: What did that training look like then? You said you didn't really go through a hardcore training because you were already trained and you took a week off and then got back into it and then just did another taper? Yeah.

Jennifer Pope: Kind of, I think so. And I'm not even sure I remember, but I do know I ran like the Dallas half in between there.

Obviously that's a race where you're pushing your fitness, system pretty high levels. And so that was probably a good like final, again, another tune up before race day. And that was a, I had a great race. Actually, that was probably, that was actually my PR. So I was like, again, it's you just re tapering in from there.

And it had another couple weeks during the holidays where you're just coasting.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. And so then you go to Houston. How [00:21:00] did, what was that like? I don't know if you remember too much, but I'm sure you remember that. That's right. You ran your best, right?

Jennifer Pope: That was like, I remember the bad parts of another hot and humid race.

Yeah.

Chris Detzel: It was another

Jennifer Pope: one of those things like, Oh, but that was when Houston was 65 and really humid. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. Cause he just, You What's that? I was really hoping the second one would be so much easier, and it wasn't, I got it, so it was great, but I was like, oh my goodness, it was, you're struggling just to, you're unsure, because so much can happen in a marathon, just because you had one race for your 15 seconds.

You might blow up for the second one, and wind is different than humidity. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, and you never take it for granted. You just don't know how one race can go. But, thankfully, it went well. I was pretty steady with splits, and obviously happy with the result. It was all worked out.

Chris Detzel: That's pretty great. And did you run the the trial chip? Did you qualify for

Jennifer Pope: it? I did. Yeah. I, [00:22:00] that was Let's go into that. Last year, February of last year. And that went okay. So actually, it's really hot

Chris Detzel: in Florida.

Jennifer Pope: It was really hot. Yeah. I would say I am very proud of my result considering it that, so after Houston, I was just jumping into random races, not really doing anything like no training blocks or anything like that.

And then over the summer I started training cause I wanted to do Chicago before the trial. So it was like doing, it was another summer build, but things didn't go very well because I got. I initially ended up with plantar fasciitis and then it took a long time and I ended up having to take time off.

And then unfortunately, while I was doing that, I had another minor injury that I just didn't really think too much about because I didn't understand what it was. And it was hamstring, bilateral hamstring tendinopathy. So both of my like glute, upper hamstring area was just always really sore and I never really understood did I over lift?

Did I [00:23:00] do too much? And it didn't dawn on me till way after I should have gotten it more taken care of that that it was a tendinopathy problem. Unfortunately I actually do what all stupid runners do, is I actually ran Chicago, but I didn't run for the two weeks prior, and I just jumped in it, ran it with a friend and eventually she even dropped me in the very end because my Glutes and hamstrings were so tight that I actually I was, like, limp walking, not limp running, I guess you should say, because it was so stiff.

I don't even know how to explain this feeling, because it's, it was unfortunate. But I stopped. Obviously, I was like, afterwards, I was taking some time off. Obviously, the trials are way more important, and I couldn't, unfortunately I, no matter I don't even want to tell you the amount of money I've spent now on shockwave therapy, I've done PRP injections, and unfortunately, I still have this tendinopathy, and I cannot get rid of it.

Yeah. I did run the trials, and it went very well, considering I had the worst training block leading up to the trials. I [00:24:00] ended up dropping every other workout because it was just so uncomfortable you I guess the way I always feel like it's you run with a board attached to the back of your legs, and you can't bend your You can't stride anymore.

Yeah. And so it's been really frustrating. And so I have the shock wave worked a little bit, then it returned and the PRP worked really great for six months. Then it's returned now. It's more, it's much more manageable than a year ago. I actually was like, it was so bad then that you start to question if you're even should continue running because not that, I'm a stubborn person.

Unfortunately, I'm a little too stubborn and I don't quit when I should.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Jennifer Pope: well compared to last year, like I was running and it was just like, this is not fun anymore. I don't know why I'm doing this. Like I'm not getting any faster because I'm trying to push and it's like my legs will not work.

They're not working. So this I actually got PRP six months ago ish and it worked really well. I had a great build up to this Dallas half this past [00:25:00]

Chris Detzel: How'd you do? You did pretty well from what I remember. I did

Jennifer Pope: okay, yeah. It's one of those things you have to keep everything in perspective. I had a decent time, another windy ish human race.

Yep.

Chris Detzel: It's a tough race.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah. The build was better than the race. So I felt, I feel like there's probably, I, I still have some good, I still want to have some good races and I would love to PR again. So that race was a little bit disappointing, but it wasn't bad. It

Chris Detzel: is. So it's obvious you can have a PR, yes, you got to get through your injuries and things like that.

But look, you've gone through some hard races, that are hot, humid, whatever. Yeah. Just think whatever you have. A nice, not windy, a perfect day, which is sometimes hard to find, but when you do find it, and you're at your peak, you're gonna, I don't know what you could do but I think it's, you're gonna kill it, I think.

That's pretty cool.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, I'm hoping so. I'm, I'm

Chris Detzel: still holding out hope.

Jennifer Pope: It's still in me.

Chris Detzel: It is. How old are you? 38. Just say, when you hit 40, you'll be in the [00:26:00] Masters. That's true. And there's some really big opportunities there. Yeah. I think,

Jennifer Pope: yeah, you always have those days where, you still have more in you and you can do it.

If I, if someone was telling me the same thing, I absolutely know I would tell him, Oh yeah, you're, you still have, you're going to have it. But when you also are the one who's unsure and you're seeing these, you're doing tempos and stuff now, you're like this is so far off from where I was before.

And so you start to get, feel discouraged by you got to take a step back and even if I don't, I'm very hopeful that I can PR again and have some amazing times, but even if I never PR again, just being able to look at the, even just Dallas's race, I still just ran a half marathon at a sub six pace.

And again, I have to keep that in perspective. That's still incredible. It's still an amazing race, but you also want to see how far, what your full potential is. It's hard not to.

Chris Detzel: Here's what somebody told me and, And I really this is like, Chris, I've been running for 30 or however long years, right?

A long time. And he goes, I think it's actually, maybe it wasn't 30 years, it was Jose Lopez. I think he was telling me this. He goes, [00:27:00] I see PRs as decades, right? Because my, when I was 18 or 19 is going to be different than my twenties. It's going to be different than my thirties and forties, et cetera.

Because one, you're a lot younger and especially if you've run that long. For you though. You haven't ran that long and you've got really fast, really quickly. So there's lots of opportunity from that standpoint for you. So sky's still the limit for you. I truly believe that, and.

We won't, you haven't lost anything, you just have to get over your injuries and,

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, and I just want to make sure it's still fun. That's the most important thing. Absolutely. Today is, I hope I do think I'll get some good times and I'll be able to get some, hit some strong races.

At the end of the day, I'm having fun. I have a great group of friends that are all very fast and motivate each other and that makes all the difference in the world, even if I don't ever hit those times again. It's just a matter of this is. Still a hobby I want to do.

And yeah, you have to get over the injuries just so you enjoy it as a hobby, otherwise, you're not going to want to even Shoot for anything, but [00:28:00] then when it is just enjoyable and you do think of it as yeah You take it very seriously. We train hard But at the end of the day like you're still making sure you can laugh at yourself and have fun And that's when I feel like you'll start hitting the PR.

So you just you know, this is a it's a love hobby It's something you

Chris Detzel: want to do. Usually I would say to people it's not like we're elite athletes But you are an elite athlete. It's a different mindset But you're not getting paid necessarily to do this for a living.

I assume you have a full time job, and what you're doing full time plus running as fast as you are and the training and everything that you have to go through, it's pretty amazing. So what's, I know that you're getting over some injuries, you just ran Dallas out, what's next for you?

Jennifer Pope: I actually, I don't know. I am, I'm somewhat building for a marathon but I don't know honestly if I'm even in

Chris Detzel: this marathon.

Jennifer Pope: I am trying to get into the championship entry of London and there's supposed to be a lot of snow by the end of this month. So I don't know if I will end up getting in, but I do have a couple of [00:29:00] backups in mind.

I just don't know. I also want to. I don't know if I, how seriously I'm going to train for it because I just want to make sure I'm not pushing too soon or pushing too much or, if workouts start to be more of a discomfort than a joy, then I'll pull it back and I'll run it for fun because I actually, I haven't run a fun, purely fun marathon in quite a long time.

And so if that's what it ends up becoming, then that's what it ends up becoming, but I would love to run London either way, but I don't know yet if I'll get in.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, my wife is running Boston, so it's her, I think it'd be her 12th time in a row, and so then she finally got into London getting her loved is hard as but she finally got into that so she's gonna go the next week. Is she really? Yeah. That's impressive. That's one thing I don't ever want to do. She's, I think she's gonna, jog it, run, yeah, that's still hard though,

Jennifer Pope: that's stupid.

Chris Detzel: Yes, yeah. But, you can't say no because Boston's her thing, right? So no way she's gonna not do you've had quite the journey I really love some of the things that you're doing and [00:30:00] really appreciate one, coming on, but also just you coming on and talking about that.

Did that miss anything that you really wanted to talk about and that I just missed?

Jennifer Pope: I don't know, I don't think so. I tend to start rambling and going off track a lot, but back in the beginning of the week.

Chris Detzel: My goal is always to keep it moving in the right direction, you tell me your story, let's go back here, let's go do that, and that's it.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, you did actually hold on, let's go back, let's go back to soccer.

Chris Detzel: One thing I will ask is when you look at you've played soccer, so I don't know if that helps too, but when you look at nutrition and things like that, is there any kind of things that running taught you from a nutrition standpoint to say, Hey, You know, hey, I could get faster if I do this, or I just feel better when I eat this and that.

Any kind of nuggets there, or, maybe you don't care about nutrition, I don't know.

Jennifer Pope: I probably don't focus on it quite as much as a lot of people, I know if I'm building towards a marathon, I won't, I'll very rarely drink any alcohol, and if, if I do, it's very minimal, and I won't drink like [00:31:00] any for the final three weeks, but outside of that, I don't have, I don't follow any particular diets or anything like that or eat anything in particular.

I do tend to just try to eat healthy in general and whether I nail that or not, it's probably like relative. It's not, obviously I eat junk too, but it's just, you try to focus more on just being healthy in general.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Jennifer Pope: But I don't, I don't have any necessarily nutrition tidbits of.

Anything particular, but I will say when you start to learn from other people is that probably like a lot of those first marathons, I could promise you that I probably never once took a gel during a long run or even, during some of those marathons and then, you realize how much better you feel during the run or even during the next day or obviously during a marathon.

How much what a difference maker that was. And I feel like when you're young, you're just like, I don't need it. I'm strong enough to make it to the end. And you do make it to the end. But whether you feel great the next day or are benefiting from it. But now, it's crazy when you actually end up getting injured is you look at [00:32:00] everything as, do I need to take more collagen?

And, oh, like tart cherry juice helps you recover. So you start just unfortunately, you end up in that rabbit hole of Googling what's going to get rid of this? And there's no magic that gets rid of anything, even with nutrition, obviously. A little bit of

Chris Detzel: rest, stretching, PT, all kinds of things that are just hard work.

Yeah.

Jennifer Pope: But,

Chris Detzel: If me drinking

Jennifer Pope: tart cherry juice would magically fix this, I would have had it gone overnight.

Chris Detzel: When you look at some of your marathons, how many gels do you usually take during, a hard marathon?

Jennifer Pope: I usually take one like every three to four miles. Probably five miles would be my max of a gap.

It just like dawns on you. You got to remember to take them. But I tend to, usually I pack five or six and then sometimes I'll end up finishing one at the line. You're like, I don't know where this, why I have it extra in my hand, but. The intent is always more, but when you're like in the moment, but I do tend to take every four, three, four, five miles.

It just depends on which one, because there's the there's bigger ones and smaller [00:33:00] ones, calories, caffeine.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, there's some now that, it's interesting that. Don't work and like you'll take it especially like right before if you're hungry or whatever But it doesn't start kicking in for until 15 minutes It's not like a complete sugar thing like some of those that just kick in right then Yeah, and then there's some

Jennifer Pope: you feel like you need water with and some that you don't really need water with I do One of the things I started telling, people and I just felt like it worked for me is Never skip a water stop, even if you don't need it, because half the time I felt like I would go to a water stop and you'd get like a sip of it and the rest would be like, you'd throw it in your face or you would just miss the cup.

And so it's like, when I started running, it's just never skip a single one. That way, if I'm getting only half the water in each cup or if I miss a few, then no big deal, doesn't matter you'll still have enough. But if you skip some water stops, and then you're also missing part of the water at different places, then, you might run into a real problem later in the race.

And I remember some of my first few, it was just like, first few after I started [00:34:00] training, seriously, it's just take the water. Every single time, take the water. And I do think that was helpful. I'm

Chris Detzel: a big fan

Jennifer Pope: of,

Chris Detzel: Carrying a a bottle or whatever, just to run with. A lot of people don't like to carry things, but

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, I don't.

I don't like to carry it.

Chris Detzel: I don't either, but I get thirsty.

Jennifer Pope: Yeah, I do in the summer when I'm running long runs like with around here because you never know if there's gonna be water It's on But during a race, I just don't, like if there's at least a water stop every few miles, I'm like, okay, I can manage this.

It would be nice to have it every second that you can just drink on your own time but I don't know. I don't like carrying it. You just like

Chris Detzel: the, just nothing that's holding you back. My wife calls it my sippy cup, because if I'm not in a 5k, 10k, half, it doesn't matter. I pretty much have it because I just get thirsty, and the last thing I want to be.

It is running as fast as I can and thirsty, so I don't know. I'd rather not do it, but I do. This is Jennifer. This has been great. I really enjoyed our conversation and I wish you nothing but luck [00:35:00] and so anything else that you wanted to bring up? I don't

Jennifer Pope: think so.

I think it's okay. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: All right. Thanks everyone for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel. And please rate and review us. And we just had Jennifer Poe on the phone, so thank you, Jennifer.

Jennifer Pope: Thank you, I appreciate it.