From Olympic Trials to Open Surgery: Cait Keen Harris on 7 Years to Diagnosis

DFW Running Talk: Cait Keen Harris
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Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel and today's special guest is Caitlin Keen Harris. Cait, how are you?

Cait Keen Harris: I'm doing great. I'm very excited to talk to you. I think it's been a long time coming. We've gone back and forth a little bit.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, look, I try, I think I tried over the summer to talk to you and you just got super busy with some, we'll talk about this in a minute.

Wedding plans and all these things, which is coming up, so that's exciting. Congratulations in a few weeks. So

Cait Keen Harris: yes, two and a half weeks from today. Thank God I'm very excited for, to have, I'm just, I'm very excited to just marry the man I'm marrying, which is number one. Yeah, number one, obviously there's been a lot of plans have gone into this as well.

We have a big family, which is difficult when you are, I wanted a smaller wedding, but it's turned into a larger wedding. It's gonna be great. Gonna look around and be happy everyone's there. But yeah, it's been, we've been engaged for over a year. Yeah. And I just think we're like, we've been talking about it so much, we're both just let's just stray to start.

The [00:01:00] marathon and get to the finish line. We're done. We're speaking marathons.

Chris Detzel: We'll be talking about some of that in a minute. But yeah, look, weddings are, been through some, it can be stressful and yes, just a lot of work time and effort. And then once it's over, you guys, it's a big stress relief.

Now I'm married and I can start your life, and but that's really awesome. I'm really excited for you. Thank you. Super cool. Thank you.

Cait Keen Harris: It'll be great. There's been a lot of challenges the last couple of weeks, but we will, we'll talk about that.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I wanna talk some about that, in a bit if you want.

Now is your fiance, is he a runner at all or anything or? He

Cait Keen Harris: has started running. Okay. He was actually supposed to run Berlin a couple weeks ago. We were both supposed to run Berlin. We got, you and I were talking a little bit before. I'm just. So I'm happy to share this completely. I'm not shy about it at all.

I actually think I can be an advocate for this condition 'cause I knew nothing about it. I knew nothing about the surgery I was gonna have. I was diagnosed with a very large ended up being 11 centimeters. Circumference [00:02:00] around fibroid that was like in my uterus. That was like causing me all types of problems.

And it took me four doctors and about seven or eight years to like complaining to get to somebody that listened to me. Yeah, it was nonsense. Like I can't even believe, like my iron obviously, like something runners already deal with female runners. Your iron is low. You're, you have a hard time recovering, tired a lot, and it was always just chalked up to that's really tough.

I'm really sorry take some ibuprofen and you're gonna be okay. But my symptoms just got so a lot more extreme at the beginning of 2023, so much so that like my legs were just go numb. I would be like laying on my bathroom floor, like I couldn't eat, couldn't hold anything down. And this was.

Every month. Yeah. For a week. And it just, it wasn't just the week of, I was starting to have a lot of issues weeks before and I just was losing a little bit of like my own life. So when I found [00:03:00] this doctor who helped me, I scheduled my surgery for. November, obviously, because we were supposed to do Berlin September 1st, our wedding, October 25th, go on our honeymoon and then we were gonna be like great surgery in November and then ride it out through the holidays.

And I got so my blood, I was losing so much blood. My doctor was super concerned. I just couldn't like it. Nothing was getting any better. And we were really nervous that I was gonna need a blood transfusion. So I went to go see her like in like tears, like one day. And she finally was like, 'cause I'd had to check in with her every week, like what my status was, what was happening, what was I noticing?

And she was like. I can't let you push this off any longer. She's I'm very, just very worried for you and I'm very nervous about it. So I had an open myomectomy, which is like a full, almost like c-section, like incision in my abdomen. And then since my fibroid was like all the way in the muscle lining.

Of my uterus, it was like [00:04:00] squashing my uterus so much that it like looked like a wishbone. They had to like fully open my uterus, take it all out, and reconstruct and heal me from the inside. So I have been, that was three weeks ago today. So I have not been running for the last five weeks I would think.

Not obviously, which is totally fine. I needed the break. I needed the rest, which is great.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, it

Cait Keen Harris: has been a challenge just like it was my time with my friends and my time to get like my thoughts out and organized and run with women. That might be like going through something I'm going through with planning a wedding and dealing with like certain emotions.

And now for the last three weeks, like it's all just been. By myself. I can text my friends, but it's not the same as like running side by side where you have that like camaraderie with someone. So it's definitely, and I had never had a major surgery, so I'd never been put under gen general anesthesia.

Whoa. I just didn't know, like the effects of that. On you [00:05:00] psychologically. Psychologically, sorry. And physically for even weeks. Like I just never knew that. So I'm really coming. I'm doing much better. This actually is such a. Like wonderful thing that you've asked me to do. 'cause I feel like it brings me like a little normalcy and a little Yeah.

Like I get to finally speak about something I love, like again, 'cause I've been taken out of it so aggressively. So I'm happy. That's true.

Chris Detzel: You've been, look, I'm glad that it sounds like things went okay with the surgery and stuff like that. Yes. I had a great surgery. Things are gonna be, you're gonna be feeling way better, in a few weeks, yes.

Cait Keen Harris: We'll get there. Once I'm laying on a beach in Mexico and I don't have to plan a wedding and I'm fully healed, I'm 95% healed and I can drink a margarita. I'm gonna be great. I'll be fabulous.

Chris Detzel: Makes me wanna drink right now. Just. Yeah, that's, look, seven years, and they just seven years.

Found that so long ago. Insane. Like right

Cait Keen Harris: around, that's crazy. 20 18, 20 [00:06:00] 17, I could say a little bit, but 2018 is when I can trace back like my first few really major episodes. And my some of like my major issues. And then I've kept like a mental log. This year this changed, and this year this started, and then 2023 is when I noticed a big shift in my ability to like recover and sleep and just maintain some like level of I just don't, you don't sleep very well. You just feel fatigue all the time. It just, I never knew why. So I'm really thankful that I found someone that would listen to me

Chris Detzel: hey, this podcast, I didn't mean to start it this way.

It's, but it's glad it did. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that I was gonna just start talking about your journey. That's all right. Let's do step back a little bit because Okay. I'm glad things are getting better and we'll, I'm sure we'll bump into to some of this, for sure.

But look you've done some amazing things. In 2020 you went to Olympic trials and. You've been in that, the running community for quite a while, and I just kinda wanna step back, way back, to [00:07:00] where it all started, for you, let's think about maybe it's high school or, college and wherever you wanna start.

I would love to hear from the beginning.

Cait Keen Harris: I have been running a long time. I started running cross country my freshman year of high school. I naturally just was, I wouldn't say naturally fast. It's not what I was naturally gravitated to This. Fort because I think I just liked the push and I liked the feeling of it.

My mom used to make a lot of jokes, like when I was really little I would run home from other sports practices. Like where in the town that I didn't grow up in DFW. I moved here when I started high school, but I actually grew up in a very little charming town outside of San Francisco. And so my mom used to take us to tennis and I would run home, would hate, I like hated tennis.

So much that I would run home and she'd be like, oh my gosh, they're gonna think I'm torturing this child. And and then I ran, how far was it from home? It was like probably half a mile. It wasn't anything. Okay. Yeah. But my sister is in the car. I'm so [00:08:00] embarrassed and so embarrassed. But I ran track like sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.

And I was more of the, around the 400, do the 800, stuff they make like the younger kids do. They didn't really put us all on the mile yet. And then once I was. Moved. I moved to DFW. I moved to Fort Worth to start high school and I think we were just going through so many changes as a family, like moving for the second, I was moving for the second time.

Across the country to Texas and I finally was like, I'm just gonna run like it's a fall sport. I'm just gonna run. I started doing it more leading into that summer. 'cause I was just trying to like process be by myself, your 13-year-old angry kid whose parents are moving them again. That's where it started.

And then I ran all throughout high school, never won any state championships, but was always second or third in the no way. In Texas I didn't win a single time, but I was the queen of second and third place about five times. That sucks between, it was horrible, but my, it's good. It

Chris Detzel: sucks. Yeah.

Cait Keen Harris: I [00:09:00] got my redemption on the girls who beat me when I got to college, when I beat them, so that was great and it was all good.

But yeah, then I, college is

Chris Detzel: probably way better once you get to that, it's s it's way

Cait Keen Harris: more val It's way more validating Yeah. Than it was in high school. And then I went to smu, actually. I ran cross country and track at SMU. I went in as a walk-on and then I ended up getting a full scholarship.

Wow. By the time I was a senior, we had a very, we had a team from all over the world. So you know, we had scholarships mainly for the women who came here from overseas and they were phenomenal teammates. And then I was the first American walk-on to get a full scholarship in the 30 years existence of our program.

So that was. Such an incredible day. I never will forget it. I wish they used to film people back in 2013 getting scholarships like they do now, because it would like, it would've loved, I would've loved to see,

Chris Detzel: smu this is highly expensive college. It was, oh,

Cait Keen Harris: i'm still paying for what I couldn't afford [00:10:00] before that.

Almost there. I'm almost done. It was expensive and I felt like I, I felt like it was not just my gift, it was also like a gift for my parents who had worked so hard to keep me there and when I probably shouldn't have been there. And I'm really grateful for that and it was awesome. And my coach from SMU Full Circle has come back to be my coach now.

No worries. And she's in my wedding and she will be reading at my wedding and she is so dear to me. What's her name? Kathy Casey.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Cait Keen Harris: Was, she's a triathlete. She actually stayed in DFW for a long time and then in 2020 her and her husband moved down to Austin, but they, she's a coach for rogue running down in Austin.

Okay.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Great. So

Cait Keen Harris: she coaches a lot of people. She's phenomenal. I really walked into her office when I was 17 and told her I wanted to be on the team and. That's just his like history just writes itself from there. It was, I can't believe that that has relationship has become what it [00:11:00] is.

Just from that interaction, you never know. You never know. And now it's been 20 fif, not 25, 15 years since I met her. And it's we've gone on this journey now together. I stopped when I graduated in 2015. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I had a little bit of an identity crisis. I had no clue like how running fit into my new graduated life.

Chris Detzel: Let's go back. Yeah. So you graduated college, but I'm curious about a story or two in college. Of your running, how you did. Were you a good runner? Course? Obviously you're a good runner, of course, but I is your story or two that you liked and just

Cait Keen Harris: Definitely I would say my freshman year I really was figuring it out.

Yeah. I was in our top, I was in our top seven all four years of my career. Okay. But ha back half at the time, like freshman trying to get through, trying to break in my freshman year was just a story of trying to figure it out and then also trying to balance this newfound like freedom away from home and like trying to be, did I care [00:12:00] about being an athlete or did I care about going out and being a sorority and meeting all these new people. So I had a hard time balancing that. I redshirted my second semester 'cause I was injured probably from not taking care of myself very well. I wouldn't say that my career really started to bloom until I was a junior. Okay. When I like really had a hard conversation after my sophomore year track season.

And it was like, do I want to. Do this how I like graduated from high school with the desire of I want to be this good or have I lost that and do I care anymore and am I just trying to sCait through this and get through it and not get the most out of it? Yeah. And so I had a very hard conversation with my coach at the time and like with myself and I just decided I was gonna go home for the summer and just get my shit together.

Yeah. I was like, I really just. I buckled down and I came back that at the end of that summer and for the beginning of my junior year, and I walked into my coach's office and she did not even recognize me and she [00:13:00] just looked at me and she was like, let's go.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Alright. I love that. That's inspiring.

So it was

Cait Keen Harris: pretty like, I was like, you're right. Like I don't care about SMU is an incredible place. It is very challenging sometimes if you can get caught up in a lot of the social aspect of smu. It can be like any place. SMU is not alone. I think that is anywhere. College. Yeah. That was just my experience where I was doing a lot of partying and I was doing a lot of that kind of stuff and I was in a sorority and I like let a lot of that run my life and then I just decided like I was gonna run and not let that run my life. I got back to my junior year and our team was like, so good. We all had the best team chemistry.

We all got along and we like. Crushed it and we won conference. I actually won six conference titles like my entire career. I didn't know, after like my sophomore cross country season, I had never lost a cross country title. Not individually as a team. Yeah. And then track was like [00:14:00] phenomenal. So you know, I was really lucky to be like on.

Teams that I was on with the women that I was on the team with. We didn't have a men's team, so we were very close. Yeah. And when we won conference my junior year and then got to regionals, we were like this close to nationals and then had a poor finish with one of our teammates ended up not finishing the race and then one of our six and seven had to make up the points.

And that kind of hurt us a little bit, even though, I mean everyone was phenomenal, but. It was like the most heartbreaking race to where like our next year, my senior year, we were all like. We are, this is not happening again. And we made it to nationals my senior year, so Wow. That was, so what was

Chris Detzel: your, what was the distance that you run?

Is it four miles then or? We

Cait Keen Harris: did we did a 5K and a six K. Okay. It just depends, like most of my conference championships. When I was in conference, USA we're 5K and then the American Conference was my senior season and that was 2013, and we ran a six K and then most regionals were [00:15:00] always six Ks.

Chris Detzel: Did that wear you out?

Did you know if you were used to the five Ks and then you had to go run a six K and you're like, oh, not

Cait Keen Harris: really. We really trained for it. Like we at Norbrook Park, our coach had a one K loop and we did that. We did it six times. Okay. It was we trained at Norbu all the time. It was actually really funny, like my sophomore year of high school or my senior year of high school, I won district at Norbu.

And I just remember being like, oh, I'm never gonna have to run here again. Thank God. And then my first day of practice at SNU, she pulls up to Norbu and I was like, you've got to beat. Fucking kidding me. You're here all

Chris Detzel: the time now. I

Cait Keen Harris: was like, I could trace that park in my mind. I could tell you that I haven't been there in 10 years, thank God.

But I could still trace it in my mind. That's funny. Just grass, dry grass everywhere. Yeah. That was I wouldn't say it wore me out. I would truly knew that my. My path was the longer distances. So I just saw it as a game. I just saw it as I get better mentally, so bring it on. I loved the [00:16:00] six K and then I did the 10 K on the track, so I had nothing to really.

That's that I was worried about.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Were you the fastest on your team or

Cait Keen Harris: No? Definitely not. I was probably like back four, five and six. Like we had a team my junior and senior year where it, you could have been anywhere, any given meet. Got it. It was so crazy how close of a finish we all were.

I think my.

Chris Detzel: That's pretty cool though. One of our,

Cait Keen Harris: yeah like my conference meet, I was fifth, but then like our regionals meet, I was sixth and then one of my other meets, I would be fourth. It just, we all were so close, especially in those two years, like with ability sometimes someone would have a bad race and someone else would be like, I got it.

We were very vocal with each other on courses. I'll never forget that either. We'd always like yelling at each other, and if we knew someone was around, I'd be like, I can't, I'm struggling. Get up here. Like we were really, we were very feisty. Yeah, it was a fun time in my life.

Chris Detzel: Y'all made it a team sport.

Such an individual kind [00:17:00] of, it really selfish sport, but it was team,

Cait Keen Harris: you're right. Like anytime we had someone that was more selfish, they would always somewhat weed themselves. Yeah. And like they were never there for, more than a full year. Or they would, yeah. I hate like this, I hate this, but like sometimes someone like, they, they got hurt 'cause they were like doing too much.

Yeah. And they weren't listening or they, they ran on our off days and they ended up. More not able to compete and it weeded itself out. It was interesting to look back on when I hear other people's experience on like college cross country teams. I'm like, ours was like survive, get killed or be killed.

Like we really had a team like pack mentality and if you weren't on it, like it was a, but.

Chris Detzel: I love it. It works. I think that's awesome. Yeah, and that's what it's about, right? You know the best of the best, and you have to work as a team to, to make this happen. What was your best, what was your best time as a 5K back then?

Remember? He's

Cait Keen Harris: six. I don't think I've broken it since, 'cause I've not [00:18:00] necessarily, I don't think I've trained for a 5k really since it would be fun to have a really, rested. K I've run a bunch of like low seventeens in the last 10 years, like in marathon builds, like in the summer, and I'm like, man, how cool would that be if I had a nice fall winter day that made me feel fast.

Chris Detzel: Some of the slots. Do you know about the slots? Yes. Yeah. A lot of those guys in over the summer did a lot of 5K, so they weren't necessarily training Yeah. In a training block. And yeah. I remember talking to Matt Campbell and I started doing this too. I, as fast as those guys, I was like, why not train for some speed stuff, do a bunch of five Ks so hard and just No, it is. Yeah. But it's better than doing a half marathon in the summer, oh,

Cait Keen Harris: totally. Hundred percent. Last summer, 2024, I did. Probably five or six, five Ks. Yeah. Just like in the Trinity 5,000.

It's seven o'clock at night. Yeah. And I did it like three or four times. I actually would run. The, it's, it was three [00:19:00] miles. It's from my house to the start line. Oh, nice. So I'd run there and then my soon to be husband would bike and then I'd do the race and then I'd run home and he'd bike home.

It'd be pitch black by nine o'clock at night. But it was great. That was last summer and this summer have been, were vastly different for me, but yeah, I think that would be fun. I see a lot, I don't look at 5K training and think oh yeah, that looks great. Yeah. I actually look at it and I'm like, I have to run how many, two hundreds, like at what pace?

I'm not even a person that likes, that, likes to do that, like float thing between a rep, like I don't like that i'm gonna stand here, look at my watch and catch my breath, and I'm gonna let you know. Then I'm gonna go again. I'm gonna go again because I'm not, I can't do that stuff.

I can, but I don't like doing that stuff. Yeah. I don't wanna do it. Even, every time it says float, I'm like, are you sure I have to do that? I don't wanna, so I'm a true, there's go ahead distance. I'm a true give me a marathon. You are now to an ultra. That's [00:20:00] right. Yeah. I'm, yeah. I'm now, we'll, getting into that, I think I was then yeah.

Chris Detzel: It's I don't still don't like it.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah. No. When I was in college, I was like, give me a progression or a tempo run around White Rock. That's what I wanna do. You did a

Chris Detzel: tempo. Yeah.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah. That's great. I would do a mile warmup and then I would tempo all the way to the arboretum, and then my cool down would be arboretum back to the, like that mile back to the parking lot.

Chris Detzel: Did you live in Dallas, smu. You were u Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah, we were, we all, we were take, we take the van, we'd all have van over to White Rock. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: So one question for the college thing, and then we'll go on to I'm just curious, as you see some of those women that you know, did, were faster than you and everything else, did any of them start anything afterwards?

Like a half marathons? Marathons, yeah,

Cait Keen Harris: a few. There's one. From my team who is, she's from London. She's from England. Yeah. She still competes. She still competes. Her name's Holly Archer. We don't really keep up with each other much anymore, but I do see a post from time to time. I know she's run, I know she ran [00:21:00] London, I think last year.

I think she ran like maybe in the. Low two 40 high, two 30 range of wicked fast. She was a 1500 meter runner. Her speed was insane. Her half marathon is so fast. I do, I've kept up with more her, more like just if it's online. Yeah. Like I see it. But we don't talk, we don't really

Chris Detzel: talk.

And you could just say hello one day, so nice to hear. Yeah. One day when I'm

Cait Keen Harris: like, Hey, I should just be like, Hey, great job. You're doing amazing.

Chris Detzel: Exactly. Why not? And

Cait Keen Harris: then, yeah, and then there's another girl who lives in between, she was very smart. She was from Norway, so she lives between Norway and Boston.

She ended up going to grad school, MIT. I've seen her run some halves and some folds posts, but no one has really done more competing. I think I would. Knew that when I was finishing college, I wasn't done. I didn't, one of my teammates, I'll never forget this, she ran off the track at regionals. Like down at Austin.

Down at Austin, and I just remember her like ripping her number off and [00:22:00] she was like I'm never doing this again. And she was like, I'm done. And I was like, wow. I could never,

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Cait Keen Harris: I can't wait to just keep doing it. That wasn't the mindset I had, but I get why some people do. They're just like, over it.

They don't wanna do it anymore. They wanna do it for fun. And I think that's, everyone's got a different idea of fun. Everyone's got a different fun scale.

Chris Detzel: You train really hard and you just it's, some people just maybe were forced or were pushed and Yeah. Running's not easy and no, totally.

To continue to. To do as many miles as you do now, or We do. I, it's a lot, it is, must keep a family and all that stuff, so I don't deny that. I love it because absolute, a lot of different reasons, but. All right. Let's talk about that. So you graduated college did pretty well, you excited and you didn't know exactly what you were gonna do with running and stuff. Let's go from there.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah. So I graduated. I had no, yeah, no clue. I was just like aimlessly wandering, I call it for a little while until I like got my footing. I had to like mentally make the decision that I was gonna qualify for Olympic trials.

Like I Oh, wow. I [00:23:00] was working in 2016 and I remember watching the trials like on TV and just being like, okay, I've got four years. Like I've gotta make this decision that this is what I'm gonna do for the next four years. That's what I'm gonna focus on. And I ended up like living at home with my parents and like I just went all in with it.

'cause at the time for like work. I still, I graduated from college. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to be a college cross country coach. Like before I really knew what kind of time that was gonna take from you. And I like thought that was my calling. It definitely wasn't. And I just didn't know.

I wasn't the kind of person who like graduated from college and was like, I'm gonna go to a big four and work at KPMG. And now I do work at a big company now, but like at the time. I didn't know. And oh, thank God. I have wonderful parents who, didn't let me like flounder, but they, my dad sat me down.

He was like, you can live here. You just have to make the decision. If this is what you're gonna do, I need to see you all in on [00:24:00] it.

I was like, okay, you got it. So yeah, I just, I started figuring out how to train. I got a coach I begged her to let me pay a smaller fee 'cause I wasn't making a lot of money.

She, her Neely Gracie actually was my coach outta college and she's run a couple Olympic trials. She's pretty fast and now she's got a pretty, she's got three, three kids. She's got a growing family. She's wonderful. She took me on and we started 2016, late 2016, getting into am I gonna do some Ks, some 10 Ks, some halves?

And then my first marathon, I did Dallas at the end of 2017 and I was doing Hals

Chris Detzel: before. Or I

Cait Keen Harris: did some halves. Yeah. I couldn't tell you. I like I think I ran no

Chris Detzel: idea.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah, I don't remember that far at the time. I might have blacked them out. I ran like Dallas, maybe like rock and roll one time.

Yeah. At like a St. Louis half. I can't remember a bunch of the other ones. I was always in the low two 20 range, 2 21, 20 range.

Chris Detzel: Same. And

Cait Keen Harris: yeah, one 20. Like I could never get. [00:25:00] Couldn't get outta one twenties. And so then I was like, all right, we're gonna do Dallas. And that was my goal and that was my whole focus.

I, I had never run like a longer and longer than 18 miles. I was 24. So I also was very young. Young. Like I think I see a lot of, there's been a lot of, there's a shift now, like there's a lot of young

Chris Detzel: Yep.

Cait Keen Harris: People in college and out of college. Running big miles and marathons. When I was 24, I couldn't have, Ima like, I was running maybe solely 45 miles a week.

Like I still felt like I was so young. Yeah. And I was I have so much time to do this, which maybe is a reason, like I have not had a major injury, but to each a zone too. But that's just how I've always seen it, but. I just remember getting to like mile 18 at White Rock Lake and it was, I just said to myself like, unchartered territory, like never run further than this.

Like what could be the could. You never did that in

Chris Detzel: training or

Cait Keen Harris: No. What could go wrong? And then we like went up Winstead and I just crashed and burn. So my first [00:26:00] full was Dallas 2017. I ran like a 2 56 and that's

Chris Detzel: pretty good. Felt first was not bad. Felt I pr,

Cait Keen Harris: I was practically walking by the last three miles, so I was pretty happy with myself.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Cait Keen Harris: Like stomach, horrible, everything horrible. Yeah. Really the knowledge of nutrition, even now, only like less than 10 years later is. Amazing. It's crazy like that. Like then I had goo tane, which I'm sure people still use, but ugh, my stomach like could not handle that. Had no idea how to like fuel and drink water and I just had no idea. So I got it together more. I ran, six months later I did the Flying Pig, which has become a little bit of like my safe space of a marathon. It's flying pigs. It's in Cincinnati, Ohio. Okay. It's called Flying Pig Marathon. That was my second race and I won.

You

Chris Detzel: know who you know? Hold on. You won. Okay.

Cait Keen Harris: Yes. Wow. Yeah, I've won it three times.

Chris Detzel: Wow. What? Alright, so what'd you get? What? What was your time the first time you won?

Cait Keen Harris: My first time, I did it in [00:27:00] 2018 when it was my second marathon. I ran a 2 46.

Chris Detzel: Oh wow. What

Cait Keen Harris: was the Olympic trial time? 2 45. That's right.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Cait Keen Harris: So at the time I was chasing 2 45. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: first marathon,

Cait Keen Harris: December. Yeah. First marathon, December, 2017. 2 56. Six months later. Six months later. Got it together. Learned how to run. I still don't say I learned how to run the race, but I just had more, yeah, more under, I just had more under my belt and 2, 2 46, I was like 90 seconds away from it, so I was like, holy crap, I can do this.

Oh,

Chris Detzel: for sure.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah. And then I ran CIM. At the end of 2018 and I ran 2 42. So it was like, so my experience, my first three races, I had such big prs, huge and all within a year, and I was like, wow, this is going great. What could go wrong?

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Nothing. I'm gonna get

Cait Keen Harris: so fast, so I'm gonna hit

Chris Detzel: two twenties.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah.

I'm gonna be amazing. But then 2019. Was a bit of a rough year. I got bit by a [00:28:00] dog, attacked my dog on a, I've had a lot of crazy things happen. Holy god. I got attacked by a dog on a run, kept putting me out like I was training. What happened?

Chris Detzel: Tell me about the dog attack. Un, unless that's too, yeah, this is

Cait Keen Harris: this is a blast from the past, but I was like, let's see.

CIM was December 20. 18. So the beginning of 2019. I took a break and then started training again. It was like March. So I was out on a run here in Fort Worth and I was by myself. It was like a cold morning. I remember it 'cause no one was out. And I was like, oh wow. Scared of the first cold day, and I was wearing a sweatshirt and I had stopped at my car. Took the sweatshirt off and ran. Like I was about to meet my friends in 15 minutes. So I'm like, I'm gonna run a mile out and a mile back. Yeah. And I got to the mile out and in Fort Worth on the Trinity Trail, there's a train yard like over on the other side and this pit bull just runs down the hill from the train yard and starts running right at me and just jumped up.

I like put my arm up [00:29:00] to protect myself and it like yanked me down. Oh my. And I was a bit not here, I was a bit on my arm and my back, my legs. He like scratched me down a few times. So that was a bit of, how'd you get him off? I just started screaming and then this woman who came running towards me, like started throwing rocks at us and she got got him with one and grabbed me.

But she didn't

Chris Detzel: get you.

Cait Keen Harris: No. I like your, I was like, your aim is crazy. She got to me and then scott, like he stopped and then somebody else was walking up towards us. Wow. And they like grabbed it, grabbed the dog, and ambulance came, and animal control. Oh my gosh. It was, as a dog lover, like this is a very hard story to tell.

Yeah. Because I, I have a dog scratching at my door right now on the, so who wants to become, who wants to be part of this and wants to come inside and I'm just, I'm dog obsessed, so it is very difficult because it's so hard to. It's just sometimes it, things like [00:30:00] this really do just happen and it's horrible.

Took me out for a little bit. I did end up running like a marathon like nine weeks after that, which was horrible. And I like literally was like, I don't know why I did that to myself. I probably should have sat it out, but I also just felt like I didn't want it to keep holding me back. Yeah. So I took the rest of 2019 and just sat with the, this tragic, just crazy thing that happened. And then I started training for the Olympic trials, which were February, 2020. And I got in really good shape and had a great day. Atlanta was, it feels like a lifetime ago 'cause it's also like pre COVID. It was five years ago too.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Pre COVID.

It was a long

Cait Keen Harris: time. It was just

Chris Detzel: pre COVID started then, like that was,

Cait Keen Harris: yeah it was two. You're lucky even ran it, it was two weeks later. Yeah. It just, yeah. I look back on it all the time wow, I can't even believe that. There was like that, and then it was crazy, like total shut down.

But anyway from that point in my life, then a lot [00:31:00] can be like, I can fast forward a little bit through like COVID running and then, getting back into it and then trying to make another play at how did your,

Chris Detzel: fair enough. But how did your, you said it went well. What does that mean? Like, how did that

Cait Keen Harris: I ran, so yeah, to, I ran, I went to Atlanta.

I ran a 2 48. That course was so hard. Like I, I got there and I'm like, I knew the elevation gain was gonna be something, but this was like you were seeing women drop like left and right. Like I remember being like, just don't walk. 'cause if I start walking I will not stop. Like we were in the last two miles.

And I was like, do not walk. And then once I found out, like at the end when you hear about who all like. Just stepped off and took themselves out of it. You're like, alright. So I was valid for thinking that this was really hard. It was like 1400 feet of elevation. Oh wow. That's pretty good. Of elevation gain and loss.

Like for every step you took up, you went down and I just was like shredded by the end [00:32:00] of it was Are you a downhill

Chris Detzel: person or no?

Cait Keen Harris: No, I don't drive in a downhill environment. I do much better with a hill.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Cait Keen Harris: But like downhills really kill my legs. So like any Revel race, I don't think that would be, for me, I think it would shred my quad.

I need to climb like I am a climber.

Chris Detzel: Marathons are tough for Yeah like I love Revel races. Just the halves. Yeah. And I'm pretty shredded for the next three days after. But yeah. People that go into those marathons, especially if you're from Dallas, the Worth area, you're gonna be screwed.

Cait Keen Harris: It's so tough. Yeah. I've trained, marathon is

Chris Detzel: crazy to do it. I've trained a

Cait Keen Harris: couple, I've trained a friend of mine for Pikes.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Cait Keen Harris: But, and the whole thing. And he is, he was an older guy and he's you just have to remember Cait. Like you're just trying to get me through it. Yeah. Like I don't care how fast I do it.

And that was a great experience 'cause getting somebody just like through a marathon is. Much different training than getting them to of finish line at a certain time. So it was actually fun because I was like, okay, you're just gonna go run [00:33:00] up and down the biggest hill in Fort Worth. Yeah. 20 times have fun, make a circle out of it.

Yeah. And enjoy. It's really tough. But yeah I'm, I actually struggle. Even in races that have like very little elevation, like Chicago had other factors going in Chicago back in 23. But I didn't even love that 'cause I just, I do like to climb, like Cincinnati is such a hilly course.

Yeah, there's so many climbs that I'm like, I have always enjoyed that I was a CrossCountry runner, like at heart. I loved CrossCountry. I probably could have run a 10 K faster in CrossCountry than I could on a track like I, that is just where I was at. And my coach now, who was my coach in college, will also attest to that.

She. She's the one that gives me the workouts. She knows what every bit of data shows, so she's, she is funny whenever she gives me workouts, so she knows I'm gonna like that.

Chris Detzel: Have you ever done any trail running?

Cait Keen Harris: No, I really haven't.

Chris Detzel: Really?

Cait Keen Harris: Mainly because I think I've [00:34:00] just been so hyper-focused on the road.

Yeah. I tend to get very like single track minded and I just get so focused on I'm just gonna do this. It probably would just take somebody to take my blinders off to lead me in that path and maybe I would like it, but I haven't done it myself yet. It could be the next

Chris Detzel: Courtney Dewal,

Cait Keen Harris: yeah. Hey, I don't know. She just ran it. It's like a 2 49.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Which is actually pretty great. You think of, it's amazing. Yeah. She's, she doesn't ever run marathons like that. No.

Cait Keen Harris: I'm like, that's so fast. I wanna do that. Just think if she actually

Chris Detzel: trained like you did. Yeah. Like you do.

Cait Keen Harris: And in like basketball short marathon, in like basketball shorts.

Yeah. In Solomon's. You go, girl. That's amazing.

Chris Detzel: Exactly.

Cait Keen Harris: She's so cool. Probably like brushing her teeth after every time she takes like a certain gel.

Chris Detzel: It's her thing. Yeah. So look great athlete, but yeah I think that's really cool. Did you so I see that you've run pretty fast by the way Yeah.

I didn't mean to say something. I think that Cincinnati race that you've run, I [00:35:00] think talking to Maddie Steyer and her sister. Yeah. Do you know them or at least Maddie? I do.

Cait Keen Harris: I knew. I do know Maddie. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Grace. Grace is her sister. Okay. Anyways, they talk about, I think they talk about that marathon, that they've done it a few times and they love it.

Yes. Okay. Alright. I was making sure I was like, I've heard that marathon before. So yeah, the

Cait Keen Harris: people, it's such a well run race and the like course environment is really great and it. It is it is a really challenging course, but I guess I just, I don't always feel like, all right, I gotta get ready for this hill.

Yeah, I just, it naturally like progresses for me and I really just enjoy it. I've run the race four times. I've won it three times. That's pretty awesome. The last time I won, it was back in 2023. Okay. I ran. In a monsoon. I ran a 2 45 and that's crazy. Which was fun. My fastest time on that course is 2 43.

Okay. I ran that in [00:36:00] 2021 and yeah, I just, I love it so much, but I haven't gone back in a couple years just 'cause I've had some other focuses and I just was like, let's, let's mix it up. Let's try to do some other races. Yeah. I don't know what my plan is for next year. I don't think I'll be ready to race at that time next year anyway yet, but we'll see.

Not sure yet.

Chris Detzel: Shit happens. See how your body heals and you get to Yeah. That's my biggest thing. What's marriage gonna be like? Who knows? Yeah. My biggest thing is like changing.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah. My biggest thing is like, how is my body gonna Yeah. Respond and I don't wanna push it so fast to force myself to be ready by a certain time.

I've never gone through anything like this before. I've never had a major surgery, and I'm not just recovering from a normal injury. This is like no, an internal, very hard. Difficult thing to overcome, like physically. So I'm just really taking it very cautiously and I'm not trying to jump into anything fast,

Chris Detzel: but you did tell me you're gonna start running in the next three or four weeks from now.

Cait Keen Harris: Maybe if I get the Okay. If I did, it's

Chris Detzel: not that long.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah, you're right. I, if I, it's more, 'cause my doctor wants me to feel normal. [00:37:00] Like she, she is a runner herself, so she's I will give this to you if you don't abuse it. Yeah, and I think it's more like for my own, I can get up in the morning and go on a jog and clear my head and then go to work.

I'm not really focused right now on being like, I have to meet my running buddy at five and do my workout and then get home by six 30. So I'm in the office by seven 15. So I'm just trying to, I'm gonna look at it more as like I have this great gift that I can, is given back to me that I can enjoy it and not look at it as what am I gonna train for next? What do I have to do? Faster. Faster.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Just try to enjoy the moments, for what it is. Yeah. And look, you might come back stronger and better just because you've been in pain for so long and had problems for so long.

Cait Keen Harris: I think that might be the case.

I know that I have that super young, so yeah, I'm still young. I think that's gonna be the case and I think it'll happen naturally.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I think it'll, so we did a few things I wanna talk about. I see that you've run a [00:38:00] pretty, really fast marathon under two 40, right? 2 39. Tell me about that. 2 39. Okay. Tell me about that.

Cait Keen Harris: That was CIM 2022. Okay. That was probably where I had the, some of the best training from the beginning of like end of 21 into 22. I had just run since Cincinnati in 2021. And then I didn't run. Yeah, I ran Cincinnati October, 2021, one, and then I didn't run another marathon until. The end of 2022.

So I had that big, long like gap. I usually do thrive too when my marathons are a year apart. I'm not a person really that should be running every six months. I like my body seems to respond better if I do one a year. So I'll keep that tucked in the back of my brain when I do have a comeback, but

Chris Detzel: I'm exactly.

Cait Keen Harris: I went into this CIM, like that CIM training cycle and I just felt really good and I'd had a lot of really good workouts and I was just really focused. And I remem, [00:39:00] I just, you know when you have those training blocks where you could just remember some of your runs and you remember how good they felt and you remember like mentally, like nothing could hurt you and nothing was gonna stop you.

And I remember getting to that race and just being like, ready. My only thing was like my last. This is always the case. It's the last four to five miles, usually the last six. And my, I would say like my pace went from 5 55 to six 15, which was my old marathon pace. Yeah. So like I couldn't be upset with myself because I was like, the fact that my.

Wheels falling off as a six became my old marathon pace. Like I have to be really proud of like how this turned out. And so I had a lot of hopes that I was gonna hit to. To 36 59 and then 2023 just didn't really shake out to be the year that I thought I like was the, my symptoms started getting.

That's where I can really start pinpointing a lot of my symptoms getting [00:40:00] worse and I probably should have pushed and advocated for myself a lot sooner, but I didn't, 'cause I didn't really know any better. But I can see a very, I can remember a very intense shift in like my ability to recover and my ability to train like around.

The summer of 2023 going into Chicago and then Chicago Day of slash the day before, like numbness in my legs, couldn't keep crazy, couldn't keep any food down. It was just terrible. Terrible experience. I still didn't have a bad day. I ran a 2 46, which damn is not a. When, but when you are, and also you mentioned this a little bit, like I have created somewhat of a career for myself as an influencer.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Cait Keen Harris: So if you wanna get into that topic too, like when you put your goal so strongly on the internet I'm gonna run a 2 36 59, and then you don't, someone might find a way to really be like, Ugh, can't believe she missed that. Or what's her [00:41:00] excuse gonna be? Someone's always.

Critiquing, like how somebody formulates their, like their excuse for how they ran. You're allowed, like everyone's allowed to be like, I had a bad day because of X, Y, and Z. Yeah, of course. Who cares? What anyone's excuses is are, and they're not excuses. Like it's just whatever. Focus on your own race, literally and figuratively, but.

I agree. I just remember, I remember a lot of positive comments, like coming from people about running a 2 46 and like still having a what a great time. So brave to put your goals out there. And then I remember like one negative comment. Exactly. Exactly's always like that, right? You always focus

Chris Detzel: on that.

Don't worry.

Cait Keen Harris: One negative comment where somebody is like. I wonder what story she's gonna run with for this. You're these are the ones that matter, but this one's holding the weight in my brain.

Chris Detzel: You've actually sparked up a few more questions, but Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you a little story because, recently I just PRD in, I'm 50 right?

And so Amazing. I just PRD in a half marathon. I've been running for a long time. Yeah. And to PR overall for me is a big [00:42:00] deal for anything. And so I did I did a Revel downhill half. I did it. This was my second time. I get a 1 26 and I'm so proud of it. And I've been learning a lot more because my job is community management, so I build online communities and, do a lot of social type things and whatever.

Yeah. But, and so I thought, I wanna learn more about, reddit. I've been doing Reddit stuff for the last couple years, but not, I'm still learning a lot from it. It's that's because, look, Reddit has become so important even to like Google search, that it's the first thing that pops up on, it's Google on everything.

Now

Cait Keen Harris: I've, it's the number of times I've gone on Reddit to be like, how long was your open Myomectomy recovery? And then you like, yeah. See all this and you're like, okay, like that she com. She commented that two days ago and that, okay, cool. Like it's helpful to have. Exactly.

Chris Detzel: So there's some helpful things on Reddit and there's just some not helpful things.

I posted in the Garmin kind of sub Reddit and I was like, I had this cool pic, and I was like, did it at the age of [00:43:00] 50, did 26, whatever, and and I would 90. 5% of the things were absolutely great likes and really great comments and Yep. All I could focus in on were the jerks that were just saying.

You could have just rolled down that hill and got a I was like, dude, what is your best, yes. It's not like I didn't train for this. Did it help me? Yes. I already said that. It's all I cared about was the negative shit. Yes,

Cait Keen Harris: it is very tough and back to this like influencer world that I've put myself in, and I used to hate that I was an influencer 'cause I was like, no I'm an athlete.

Like I'm fast. The reason you. People follow me or because like I've gotten or because I'm running fast and I'm showing it and like I'm showing it in like how it works in my life. No, not an influencer, boo bad. And then I came to accept it and I'm like, okay. You know what?

This actually isn't bad. I've created a second income for my life. Tough. And I, back to the [00:44:00] SU topic, had a lot to pay back and I just I saw it as like a opportunity to like, and who's, why not? Why not? And then you see, if you ever read it yourself, you ever read it your own name and you see so much bad about you.

And I will say I don't get it as bad as a lot of other influencers. And I, I've had my name thrown on there a few times, not as much as most anyone else. I think when I found out that Reddit page existed, I was so like pitched fork about it. Like, how dare you. Why I was, I know that's just a people pleaser too.

I'm like, how can you hate me? I'm so like, what did I do? And then you try to like, you don't have to

Chris Detzel: do anything.

Cait Keen Harris: Then you try to formulate your content so everyone loves you. It still doesn't work. Trust me, then you just hate yourself. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: exactly.

Cait Keen Harris: And so I've had to come to peace with the fact that that exists and it's okay.

And if people want us to talk, say something about me and talk. Talk shit [00:45:00] or I don't know. I don't think it's really bullying. Maybe at one point I did. I don't really feel that way anymore. Like people just need a place to vent and if I'm the person they wanna vent about great. Cool. I guess that, that it can hurt my feelings.

Like I need to be better at protecting my own feelings. Yeah. So like, why even look at my own name and I used to not be good at this. I would be like, let's just find everything mean anyone's ever said. And, I've changed my tune on that. I see it as

Chris Detzel: it's not productive, to be honest.

It's not it's hard not to at the beginning to focus on that. But, but everybody's gonna, like this podcast for example, not this podcast, but this overall podcast,

Cait Keen Harris: no, me, maybe the Redditors won't like this one 'cause of me, but you never know. You just dunno.

Chris Detzel: No, just

Cait Keen Harris: hopefully not.

I'm so sorry.

Chris Detzel: You're fine. No. And know I'll, we'll talk a little bit more about that if you want, but I'm curious to know more about the community that you built around you. Wow. Tell me more about that. From a running standpoint.

Cait Keen Harris: The running group here, like I have in Fort Worth is so amazing.

Like they're my [00:46:00] lifeline. They are the best women around that. I know. I've had, speaking of the sloths, Joel Hernandez has become one of my closest friends and he and I started running a lot together too. So like the community here. Is phenomenal and they've become like such close like sisters to me.

And Joel's like a brother. And Joel, I call him Joel 'cause it's easier to yell at him when he's doing a rep. I'm like, go Joel. And they're just. I can count on them for any, anything. They've all delivered me dinner in the last three weeks. They've, that all come to That's awesome.

Me I don't feel like, I've, the village is strong here and I'm very grateful for it and they're such phenomenal people and I can, they all know the inner workings of my life and I know the inner workings of theirs and, just great to lean on. And then I think some, I've built some of that too into the online community that I have.

I have been very vocal and very open about what I'm going through, and I feel like that's the only way, like I can have the community that I do that's so supportive. And I've just been [00:47:00] flooded with so many kind messages of recovery and awesome. Like just get better and hang in there and we know you got a lot going on, but like we're really pulling for you.

And things like that, make me feel encouraged at a time when I feel low. There are days where I feel maybe terrible and I'm spiraling, but then I open my phone and. I shouldn't doom scroll, but then I see I have a message and I had sometimes I don't even have stories up. And then if you don't have stories for a few days, maybe somebody takes notice of that.

Yeah. And they send you a message and they're like, Hey, I'm sure this is really hard. I just wanna let I've been thinking about you and I think that you're doing amazing and it's gonna be okay. And like things like that. Just really lift me up out of a funk, and I've been really grateful for a lot of the community that's been around on there.

And I just think that it's, I've been really lucky to have that.

Chris Detzel: Do you have is there other women that you run with that run at the same speed or,

Cait Keen Harris: oh yeah. [00:48:00] We formed a group back in 20 18, 20 19 when five of us went to the Olympic trials. Oh wow. In 2020 from Fort Worth, from our group.

So we were called this group

Chris Detzel: called, yeah,

Cait Keen Harris: the Fort Worth Distance Project. We have all somewhat now. Different goals. Back five years ago, there was a lot of just like 2020 focus. Now there's a lot of more, there's a lot more kids involved. Yeah. And there's a lot of other life happens, goals, life.

Life has happened. I think I'm the only one that hasn't in the last five years, gotten married yet or had a child. You're about to

Chris Detzel: get married, so

Cait Keen Harris: I'm about to get married, so we'll see what happens after that. But yeah, that is, that has been everyone's journey and it's been really cool to watch.

Cool. Cool. Everyone has been back in 2020. We were all, hardcore sub 2 45, fast, hardcore, had fast women. Yeah. Met every day at 4 45, no questions asked fast women. It was cool.

Chris Detzel: How do you and maybe we don't dive too deep in there, but I'm curious about you said you had a coach and stuff like that.

So when you think about training, what does that kinda [00:49:00] look like? On a, yeah, let's say daily basis, we,

Cait Keen Harris: yeah. So I like it like when you have other women that you're training with that don't have the same coach. Yeah. So we all there's always just this very well we were all very able, able to communicate what our workouts were.

So it, I would be like, I have a tempo run. I'm gonna run my warmup like for these two miles, and then this is where I'm planning to go. And someone else was like, great, I have three miles, reap two times. So we'd always, because it's also like a safety thing too. Hundred percent. We'd all we'd always be within the same like mile area.

Yeah. We'd all make sure that we were all within the same distance of each other. No one was too far away. I knew where our cars were. And we would just align ourselves with that. If someone had a three mile tempo and someone has six mile tempo, we're like, let's start together.

Or if yours is faster than mine, like then you and I can like. Off of each other. Yeah. But we did do a lot of those workouts, Yep. Around that time, back in 20 18, 20 19. And then sometimes if it was like, [00:50:00] I have K, someone else would be like, oh my God, I have Ks too. And you're like, finally it would sync up.

But we always were really, I would never I also would say like we're all very competitive

People, but it never came out, sorry, I've been nursing this cough. It never came out like we really competitive with. Other, like in that setting, like when we were racing like in worth out it.

I'm like, I was like, don't talk to me beforehand. Love ya. But like in the, in our, but not friends. I know. Not my friend Liz. Get over there. No. Liz Northern is one of my dear best friends, but left her on, I've been to get her when we, oh my gosh. She will be our hoot and a half. She's so fun.

She's so cool. Yeah, she is.

Chris Detzel: She's

Cait Keen Harris: done so many amazing things, but Liz and I are competitive, but like when we're training together, she'll be like, not doing this last rep, I'm out. But like when we would get to her race, we're like, alright,

Chris Detzel: who's this bitch now? Let's do this today.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah. What?

[00:51:00] Let's go. Yeah. I would say Liz probably used to be like my number one, like Mo, like she's also five years older than me. We went to the same high school, like we had a very similar trajectory.

Chris Detzel: That's, and I

Cait Keen Harris: would say for a very long time when I was younger and Liz was more mature, in my mind I'd be like.

Brace this bitch, but she's become my, like one of my absolute best friends's. She just went on my, that's just went on my bachelorette party with me. Such a fun times. Yeah. It's such a cool group of people.

Chris Detzel: Might be worth getting the two of you on just to, to do kinda We could.

Cait Keen Harris: The comedy show would be nothing short.

You need a ticket.

Chris Detzel: I'll do it. It

Cait Keen Harris: would be fun.

Chris Detzel: What's, I know that you're about to get married, just had surgery, all this stuff. But as you think of the future for your running kind of career, what does that look like for you?

Cait Keen Harris: Let's see. If I get into the race that I signed up for two weeks ago, I'm waiting to hear about the lottery for the Sydney.

Chris Detzel: Okay. Yeah,

Cait Keen Harris: so that would be the only thing until I find out if I got in or not, that I'm gonna think about. It's [00:52:00] far enough at the end of the year, next year, I think I would give, be giving myself like a very fair amount of time. It's like when it's August, early September. Am I totally off on that? I.

September? No, I think you're

Chris Detzel: right. I think it's September. Yeah,

Cait Keen Harris: I think it's September. So I think I'd be giving myself a very fair amount of time. Yeah. To heal, rest and get there. If I don't get in, then I'll make another plan, but I'm only gonna look one race at a time right now to just see how I, how my body heals.

I can see 2026 being like a rebirth, a little bit of what can I do? And also a lot of this can grow from stress and from high cortisol and lack of vitamin D. They, it is also hereditary too. I don't have anyone in my family that has had a fibroid, so I don't know where it would've come from other than these factors that I've just learned about. So I also need to learn how to manage my own stress and to 'cause running people are like stress management. I'm like, actually it puts a [00:53:00] lot of stress on you. So I also need, I need to like, I want 2026 to be a year where I learn how to focus on my health.

Like my physical, emotional like health, so that I'm not like sleeping five hours a night again and running 50 miles a week off of five hours of sleep at night and like taking care of myself in a much healthier way rather than just like my foot is on the gas to the floorboard, which is how I normally operate.

So I want that, I want this to be like a learning time where I can figure out. That is a good way to do things. And that's just how I am wired. But like, how can I do that and keep myself healthy?

Chris Detzel: I think I, if you think about the rest of this year anyways Yeah. You're forced to, I'm not saying not be stressed, but you're certainly forced to slow down a little bit from a running standpoint.

Right? Totally. And in my mind, you should just allow yourself to. To embrace that, and not allow yourself to worry. You're just not gonna be able to run No, exactly. Or run that much or run that hard. You just know or

Cait Keen Harris: run [00:54:00] that structured when I, or either that, like when we get back from, 'cause I'm also like, if you have people on here that listen to this that are DFW runners, probably most of 'em have run with me or followed me.

They might tell you that I'm very structured, like I do abide by a regimen and this will be. A time for me in the next two or three months where I don't have structure, which is very new for me. I'm usually like, my rest day is Wednesday and that you'll never make me change it. And my, this is this day and I'm a long run on Saturday and I will not get, it's not doing

Chris Detzel: this.

She's doing this.

Cait Keen Harris: So I this is my time to really like, Hey, if I can't run that day, 'cause it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. Or then we have holiday plans and then we have Christmas. And so it's definitely a time for me to learn like the how to factor my life into running to Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Is there anything that I.

Completely missed that. You're like, man, we really need to talk more about this.

Cait Keen Harris: No, I think, man, and I'm a talk, I'm a yapper and we went [00:55:00] over an hour, so I think we might have covered all of it unless we wanna get more into the journey, but I think we I think we covered a lot of things.

Chris Detzel: We can do this more than once if you want.

Totally.

Cait Keen Harris: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: This has been great, Cait. I love it. And I have, I had a ton of flaw and you're very easy to talk to and I just truly enjoyed it and you've got a great running journey and it's really cool to,

Cait Keen Harris: Like you too with your new 1 26 pr. Yeah. Heck yeah. That's so cool.

Don't let us, we all have our stories. Don't let the people that are like you just rolled down the mountain, don't let them stay. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: exactly. I'll say, I don't think I would've wanna rolled down that mountain anyways, no. Geez.

Cait Keen Harris: God, it's hard.

Chris Detzel: Thank you everyone for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk.

I'm Chris Tetzel. Don't forget to rate and review us and sign up for our newsletter. It's at dfw. Do sub DFW running talk. Sorry. Do sub stat.com. Cait, thanks so much.

Cait Keen Harris: Thank you so much. Bye guys.

Chris Detzel: Bye.

Cait Keen Harris: See?