From Runner to Race Director: Libby Jones' 18-Year Journey with The Active Joe
Libby & Chris - DFW Running Talk
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Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] All right. Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Dutzel, and today I have special guest Libby Jones from The Active Joe. Libby, how are you?
Libby: I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on, Chris. I was so flattered to be asked.
Chris Detzel: I was so excited that you said yes. You never know. Some people might not want to do podcasts and talk about running and whatever, they've maybe not done it, but I think you've done some of these before in the past.
No,
Libby: they're never easy, though, because you're having to talk off the cuff and especially when it's done. You have planned is that you're not just going to just, I keep asking me questions over and over. We're having a conversation about the sport we care about, and that means it can go in lots of directions and that's a little vulnerable and scary.
Chris Detzel: Look, the way I see it is, let's say we're running together, and we're jogging and just, we're just having a conversation and that's how I like these to go is, you're just saying, Hey, you're in this thing, you're [00:01:00] doing these things, let's talk more about it and that's always how I hope.
These conversations go and we'll try to make it as easy as possible. How about that? Okay, thanks.
You've been in the running community for a long time. And I'm excited to understand your journey a little bit. And look, we'll talk a little bit about some of your races that you're doing and that you're, how you got into all that.
But I'm first just interested in you and you as a runner and how you've got, even got into it.
Libby: Yeah, it's pretty interesting that I'm hitting a phase of my life that people know me as a race director, maybe as a member of their community, but they don't know me when I was a running club president or when the active Joe originally was helping running clubs with merchandising before it was even a racing company and and when I was an actual racer myself.
My running days are unfortunately over after a very bad leg break right at the beginning of the pandemic. I needed full ankle [00:02:00] reconstruction surgery. I broke through both bones in my lower leg, just a freak accident playing soccer with my kid.
Chris Detzel: That's terrible.
Libby: I have a pound of metal in my leg. I have eight or nine screws, a six inch plate, a six inch rod.
And you add to that a pandemic where physical therapy wasn't as available for a lot of that. I had to relearn how to walk on my own after 4 months and so my shin muscle never really healed very well over the plate. Any attempt to. Flex that leg at that angle. You would to run is incredibly painful.
So I know some people wonder why they don't see me racing. What a lot of people don't realize is I was a runner starting back in 2005. And I have run I've completed. 38, I believe, marathons or ultras.
Chris Detzel: Damn. It's pretty awesome.
Libby: [00:03:00] And I've completed that level of distance in half the states.
Chris Detzel: So go back a little bit.
Let's talk about what, how'd you even get interested in running? What, what made you decide, Hey, I want to go run.
Libby: It was a friend who decided that we were going to go do the St. Paddy's Dashdown Greenville. It's such an institution in Dallas for so many years, and this was 2005. Going on forever.
And she, no 2004, and she said, and we're going to run every step of it. Having not trained at all, and the runners are going to find this really ridiculous that there's this terrible hill in the 3rd mile as you're coming back to turn on to Greenville to finish the race. And I remember seeing the mile 3 marker and going, oh, dear God, I can't do a 3rd mile.
Chris Detzel: I think 5Ks are the hardest,
Libby: and and then you'd make the turn and the finish line is right there. You just can't see it when you're going up the hill and you're at that mile 3 marker [00:04:00] and I'm dry heaving at the finish line and. Oddly enough, it started with a completely untrained 5k, and the same friend had gotten me into long distance walking for a cause.
We did the Susan G Komen 3 day walk.
Chris Detzel: Yeah,
Libby: and so I walked. Yeah, and so I actually walked my 1st half marathon. It was the big D half bringing back another race that doesn't even exist anymore.
Chris Detzel: I have, I did the full, that's my first full.
Libby: I think I did the half six times over the years. So it was around a long time.
But it also does make mean that as a race director, I'm always so generous about being a back of the Packer because I know what, you It looks like to have started out that way, or even maybe because of injury, you're back to that way or anything in between. But ironically, I thought, Oh, great. Okay.
Now I'm a [00:05:00] runner. I'm going to train for my first marathon. I didn't do any of my midweek runs. I was meeting up with my long run group to do my long runs. And I ended up with the worst case of plantar fasciitis, and my arches had completely flattened, completely collapsed, that ended up taking nine months of like constantly taping my feet.
I was able to avoid surgery, but I basically have had to physiotherapy my way through retraining.
Chris Detzel: Did you think it was because you didn't do your stuff, the runs during the week. Yeah. And you just, I
Libby: I was up to I got up to an 18 or 20. It's just that was like all my mileage.
Chris Detzel: So for the week you did 20 miles.
Libby: We know that base is important, but when you're starting out, there's so much emphasis on the long run.
Chris Detzel: There is.
Libby: It's just so easy to forget.
Chris Detzel: I [00:06:00] remember when I first started out, probably I used to be a runner back, in high school, but only did five case. But then I quit for I don't know, 15 years or whatever.
And then when I got back into it, I started running Just like very small miles. And then I was like, you know what when I get up to five or six miles, I would run them as fast as I can every single day and realize, at some point, I think I joined the club or something several months later and realized that's not the right thing to do.
You don't run as fast as you can every day or every time you run to get a PR.
Libby: I think that's another thing that a lot of people do and don't realize. My, one of my tricks, I always tell people is you should be able to sing the alphabet and actually be understood.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Libby: I think if all of us are always running as hard as we can, it's yeah, you can't hear it through the huffs and puffs.
Can you, and it's a thing you can test with yourself when you're alone. But what's funny is that by getting injured on my way to the Dallas marathon, going to be my first I ended up [00:07:00] volunteering. Our group was supposed to be As a training run using the DRC, the Dallas running club, half marathon in early November coming up, I think this coming weekend.
In fact, it is that time of year again. And so we were supposed to be running it. And I said I'll volunteer because I'm now horribly injured. And before I knew it, I was, and I was a member of the club already, but before I knew it, I'd been recruited into Oh, okay. Hey, you you have a good logical mind for race correcting and like It would be really great to get you more involved and six months later. I was the president of dallas running club
Chris Detzel: That's great. That's that showed that they had some confidence in you now dallas running club is a club that is They don't they have 100 percent volunteers, right?
So I've been part of that club for a while. And they tout that in a big way. And great people there. And that's, you, so I've been with the Dallas Running Club [00:08:00] or since 2013, but this was even way back.
Libby: Yeah, so we're talking 2013. Five, six, right in that range. I ended up staying a club president for two years and I actually earned a road runner's club of America award as outstanding club president in the whole U S because in that two years the club grew from a thousand members to 4, 000.
And it's actually where the training program started.
Chris Detzel: I heard that. Yeah. So what would you do to, one, get 4, 000 members from 1, 000? That seems crazy.
Libby: Historically, and the other past presidents were wonderful people, and I look to them for so much mentorship. But the focus was on being a faster runner.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Libby: And the past presidents were almost extinct. Exclusively men as well. So I think that I had the ability to bring in a different demographic, [00:09:00] but also we were hitting that age in like that 2006. I was. So I was 25, 26 at the time, and the previous presidents were always in their late 40s. So I brought technology.
It was the first time that we had an online membership system. The first time you could do online registration for races.
Chris Detzel: But remember, online was very, fairly new, right? It was so
Libby: new that even when we got to 2013, people were still asking for mail in. Yeah, registration, and I got in a bit of a legal tiff with a registration system company.
Here's the dirt. I never talk about this, Chris podcast people get this and I won't leave the company because I never want them to come after me, but essentially they were doing some shady things behind the scenes where unless you declared. A year's notice they wouldn't release you from being their register using them as your [00:10:00] exclusive registration platform So it would mean that you would literally need to cancel on the day of your race a full year before and know that you weren't going to use them and so Purely out of spite because they had to be my only online I took only mail ins for months and months.
And there's pictures of my mailbox just full because New Year's double at that time was like 2000 people. I got to revisit a little after when mail ins were dying down. What how terrible dealing with mail in registration was. I never want to go back.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, no way. I don't, does that, is that even exist anymore?
Libby: There's still some old school ultras out there They're the same ones that have a one page web page
Chris Detzel: Yeah,
Libby: and they're run by somebody that's of several more years of seasoning than you or I typically
Chris Detzel: make sense
Libby: Those are still doing it, but it's not easy to find.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, I mean for the most [00:11:00] part it's pretty much So you grew it and do you think it was one one?
Like you said it was mostly for fast people, but It was also for there wasn't a lot. It was a lot of men there and things like that. So you brought, hey, you're a woman, we run to kind of thing. And there's probably a potential opportunity there and
Libby: think about it.
This was also the era when we didn't have 50 percent representation in half marathons. It wasn't until around. 2012 13 that we've we had surpassed that and nowadays I think it still sticks around 55 percent women in the half marathon. So now instead the active Joe is always working with ultra marathons because in the 100 miler we're still seeing that women are only about 15 to 20 percent of the field and there's a lot of obstacles.
To racing for women that for that kind of distance. So instead, [00:12:00] Dino Valley hits about 40 percent women. Like again, so just for our
Chris Detzel: audience, just for our audience, the active Joe is the race or is the company and you have a lot of races underneath. That are mostly trail. I think you might have a road race or 2.
Yes. Yeah.
Libby: Sorry. We were jumping ahead. But yeah, New Year's double is actually the 1st race. The active Joe ever produced and it's a 2 day road race. New Year's Eve and New Year's day. I ran it before
Chris Detzel: I got a PR there once.
Libby: Oh, I love that. And the idea was always like, hey, why are we getting everybody into the gym January 1st?
How about October 1st? Why don't you come out and end the year with a race and then start the new year off immediately with a race? Because there are so many people that have a superstition or a general feeling that how you start your year is how your year will be. So that was like such a good example of then why would you not run a half marathon?
On new year's day, that's what I said,
Chris Detzel: and [00:13:00] that's why I did it
Libby: But
Chris Detzel: it's interesting because on that particular one you have the new year's double so it's That it's isn't it december 31st. You have a race and then january 1st. Is that right?
Libby: And it's actually two races on both days. You can do the 5k and we totally finish the 5k before we start the half and full marathon.
So people actually can do up to 58. 6 miles over the two days. Oh, there's that. I
Chris Detzel: wouldn't think of doing it twice, but yeah.
Libby: It's so funny because it's a super flat course, but I always say that all of my races are meant to be challenging
Chris Detzel: And
Libby: the challenge in that case is the two days in a row and to a certain limit the monotony of it is yes It's a flat course, but it's a four loop marathon
Chris Detzel: So let's go back because we jumped way ahead.
I want to go back and we'll get back Trust me to this, because I'm certainly interested in all your races. Yeah, sorry, there's so much
Libby: to talk about. No, no worries. 18 [00:14:00] years doing this. Exactly,
Chris Detzel: there's 18 years, so let's try to get 18 years into, a one hour session here. But, so you did the DRC stuff.
I have a couple questions, about that, because I think, so interesting. You mentioned that they didn't have a race, or a training program then. Yeah.
Libby: Yes. Nikki Davis Dave Bindi, there were a handful of people that are names that a lot of people know in area who were those 1st training program leaders.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Libby: And and while, it was like, hey, if we're going to grow a club, we need to also train them. It was the help of all those training program leaders that made it happen, but then further have kept it going. Yeah. 'cause it's still such a strong program.
Chris Detzel: What's a It's the money maker I would think, or one of the money makers
Libby: Yeah. As a non-profit entity, it's always so funny because not only did I become the president, but I then inherited over time the DRC half race production. That was my [00:15:00] first, that's right. Race to produce. And in fact, in 2000. So 2006, I was like a volunteer coordinator under Paula Robertson, who is the race director who trained me.
Paula was trained by Lewis George, who owned Maloo Productions and made the Big D marathon that we were talking about earlier. And then Paula trained me and then 2007 was my first year as race director of the DRC half. And I had let me see. My baby, Marissa, who's now 16, was was 8 days old.
Wow. And I directed my very first DRC half. So it's all my kids have ever known is mom has bins everywhere and there's traffic cones in the front.
Chris Detzel: That's all I've known
Libby: stuff like that DRC was a special time because I do believe to a certain extent, because I know the club is not at that size, but but they make a lot of [00:16:00] their money for the year to keep things going through the DRC half and the training program was another way for them to do that.
But it can be a little bit of a thankless job to be a race director, because we had, I think, 1 of, maybe still our biggest years of that race, 4500 people of the two years that I've directed one year was huge. And it was like, oh, but we made less money. It's you have to market in order to bring in people.
So then the next year was smaller and we made a lot more money for the club, but it was like, oh, but it was smaller. You can't win.
Chris Detzel: I think look, you always, the numbers are always the sexy thing, right? Is how many, Oh, 4, 500 members. Oh, 10, 000. Did you make money? And, at the end of the day it's gotta be about probably a little bit of both.
You have to have people there, it's, you still got to make some money. So you offset costs and things like that. So you can, like you said, continue the programs. And look with DRC, In general, the membership is two years and then you move on and, some of those jobs that they do is [00:17:00] intense.
It's like you look at a just a race director, like the race director, somebody that's doing all the races. And specifically, like you said, the DRC half. It's a lot of time and effort, right? Yes,
Libby: because even while the DRC half is they're a big signature race. They were putting on a race basically every month and a lot of those race directors had done that for years and people would adopt a certain month or themed race, but that's so much effort to do a free race to your membership.
And I think a lot of people don't always realize how much goes into that, so I'm glad you highlight that.
Chris Detzel: And the training program person that runs those things, it, talk about how much work and time you have to find pacers, you have to find coaches, then there's people emailing you all the time, and I know Nikki has done that before, and then, Vishal and a bunch of other people, and, yeah, I think somebody asked me would you ever be into it? I was like, nope.
Libby: The routes, at least nowadays you can program them [00:18:00] into your Garmin or Coros or Suunto, but way back when it was handing out the little turn by turn directions.
Chris Detzel: They still do that, right? They'll just, they'll just send it. I would just
Libby: assume everybody downloads it onto their phone. No, they
Chris Detzel: don't. They don't. People the thing is a lot of times the watches Aren't perfect. And they, and people can't hear them. And so there's still opportunity within the technology.
I think it's good, if you have a pace pacer, that I remember we had this pacer a couple of years ago and she would get lost because she would only got her watch. And it just, she didn't hear it or it gave her the wrong turn or whatever. And so people still carry the turn by turn directions.
So
Libby: it's like relying on your Google maps. Too heavily. And then the second that's. There's construction and you're just lost and you don't have any directionality.
Chris Detzel: Exactly. All right. So you finally, you did this stuff with DRC. It did a lot of really great stuff. It sounds like you race directed the [00:19:00] DRC half and that, Obviously sparked your interest, what was next
Libby: I then followed Paula Robertson who had trained me She in the meantime had started her own women's half marathon heels and hills Okay, and we went off and produced that together for another I guess that would have been another 3 years.
At which point I actually was getting into ultras right around this time too. I had stayed at halves for years and years. I hadn't even done my 1st marathon. So it wasn't until 2011. I even did my 1st marathon. And I have to say I love the story about this because I think it's 1 that a lot of people will relate to is I signed up for the San Francisco marathon.
Yeah, that's very 1st.
Chris Detzel: Okay.
Libby: But while I'm having my glass of wine late at night, then I'm like, I'm not going to be a 1 and done because what if it's a bad I'm a mathematician originally. So what if it's a bad sample [00:20:00] size of 1? There should at least be a sample size of two. So the same night I signed up for Chicago, two months later,
Chris Detzel: you sound like you get so excited.
It's Oh my gosh, I got to do more,
Libby: and then what was funny is it was also really scary. Cause then I. Ended up blogging for the San Francisco Marathon organization, my entire training for 20 weeks. So everybody's watching. Back in the days that blogs and early Twitter or what everybody was watching, I actually live tweeted my first marathon mile by mile.
I
Chris Detzel: didn't know that was a thing.
Libby: It was back then. I don't know if live X ing now, that feels somehow dirty.
Chris Detzel: You mean live? Like you're sitting there texting while doing it or, Oh, okay.
Libby: On second
Chris Detzel: video. Cause you do live video on all these things. I was like, I didn't think they had that, but yeah, that makes sense.
Libby: It was all. And then I would use it to create the race report blog of there's nothing more raw than [00:21:00] 140 characters while you're running.
Chris Detzel: Exactly.
Libby: And then doing that 26 mile markers over. But then I actually enjoyed my first marathon so much that my husband and I made plans to go to Napa for a few days to decompress and let me recover.
And while we're there, I was like, honey please. I know what I want to do. I always said, if I was going to run marathons, I wanted to go to Hawaii, go to Kauai and run the Kauai marathon because I love their metal.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Libby: And it was five weeks after San Francisco. Oh, I thought you said Chicago.
And it was four weeks before
Chris Detzel: Chicago. Oh man, Libby. I
Libby: literally went off and my very first three marathons got me in Marathon Maniacs with three and ninety days. And I left him at home. That was the other thing is honey, I'm going to Hawaii without you because the plane tickets expensive.
A little too much. And our kids need somebody to stay.
Chris Detzel: That's the thing. [00:22:00]
Libby: Oh, and he's always been such a support. So yeah, I ran off and did did these three marathons and all of that was done in training for my very first ultra, which was Rocky Raccoon 50k in November of 2011. So I not only did the 50k, I did the first 50k.
Chris Detzel: Rocky Raccoon no, I did a 50k and it used
Libby: to be split. There didn't used to just be the February. They used to have a 50k that was completely separate.
Chris Detzel: Oh, okay. Yeah, because I have a 50 miler and a 50k and so
Libby: now they're all in the February timeframe. Yeah, that's right. That's when that. So you've done in the February one.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, that was the very first one on February, the 50k and that's the one I did.
Libby: Yep. That was my first ultra. And then I was bit by that trail bug really hard and it became a major focus.
Chris Detzel: Yeah. And so here we are now, like just a few years later, then [00:23:00] tell me more about, what came up with the active Joe, like, how did you start thinking about that?
Libby: Yeah. So at the same time, I was starting to feel like, I want to do my own vision. I've done races for nonprofits for years now. I've done clubs for nonprofits. I think I want to make my own race. And again, my husband was like, I'll be supportive, but I kept going, one would be the perfect first race is January 1st, 2011.
Yeah. One, one, one, one.
Chris Detzel: Love it. Yeah. Is that
Libby: a way to kick off like a company?
Chris Detzel: I like the idea.
Libby: Yeah. Except that my second daughter was born December 1st, by C section. I wasn't allowed to lift anything at the race. I was still surgically recovering. It sounds absurd when I say it all out loud. [00:24:00] But it was wonderful.
I announced it in like August, September. Okay, I'm going out on my own. I'm just going to make it like 200, 250 spots for just a half marathon on New Year's Day. And it sold out within three weeks.
Chris Detzel: And that's the New Year's Double.
Libby: And now it's the New Year's Double. But before it was just that one.
And, okay, more dirt. Because, again, I don't talk about this stuff a lot. But there was a running store in Allen. Nobody's going to know
Chris Detzel: but us, by the way.
Libby: Of course! No one's listening. I'm just kidding. I know everybody's going to listen, but since you have DFW running group, that's like 10, 000 people. I know people are going to hear this and be like, Oh, but but I have no regrets for how everything ended up happening.
And what was funny is that. The New Year's Day half marathon in 2011 was held at a trailhead that had one of the only places that we could do an out and back half marathon in out where I was living just north of Dallas. And there was a running store in the shopping center [00:25:00] right there. And of course it was great.
There's a shopping center right there. It's New Year's day. No, one's going to be there. We got permission to park and the city was on board. And so after the race, I said, Hey guys, I went to the shopping center and the running store shows up at the meeting and I said I would really love to do New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and make it like a double days.
And they said if we can't own it, Then we're going to say no and be very upset about this and the shopping center said I have to keep my tenant happy if they're not happy
Chris Detzel: interesting
Libby: and the city went Darn it guys like this is a great idea. And so the city found me our current venue
Chris Detzel: See, somebody's on board.
So that's good.
Libby: Yes. And and what do you know? That's how New Year's double got was born is this running store could have had an opportunity to try to [00:26:00] be a partner and try to lift it up. But I think that running
Chris Detzel: store, like two races that are very prevalent, or eventually, and people need shoes and stuff, running stuff that would have been a perfect opportunity for them, whether or not they were, owned it or not,
Libby: I feel like we were in an era too, of a lot of competition for running stores in Dallas.
There were multiple companies trying to get their market share. They all had their own training programs. They all were making their own races, had their own timing companies. There was a vertical integration. This was something like Carnegie would have been like, yes let's fight over this.
And so I think it's also just. I don't think it reflects poorly on anybody. It's just the way the time was and
Chris Detzel: yeah And
Libby: I think this market is actually i've been around long enough and i'm old enough that i've watched this happen Time and time again that there's certain competition levels or [00:27:00] market share Issues where or saturation in a market?
Chris Detzel: Yeah
Libby: and watching how that changes, the rock and roll marathon series What goes on with iron man? Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc organization.
Chris Detzel: That was a big one.
Libby: Yeah, so it's like we're watching the same things and history repeat itself, but it's with different organizations and a similar mindset of less collaboration and less lifting everyone up and more.
If I don't own it, then it shouldn't exist. Let's pummel it and destroy it.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, so well, I think that, that's the mindset of, the hardcore business person that just doesn't care about,
Libby: no, that's such a good thing to say, because I've always said that my company that's the other thing is that.
Unlike the other race production companies going around is that I do this all as a volunteer basis full time because I'm a stay at home mom and I have the luxury and the privilege [00:28:00] to be able to do that. And said, we've given to charities, so we've given over 300, 000 dollars in the last 10 years to charities.
But it also means that I don't have to follow a competitive or capitalistic viewpoint. And I've always instead walked around with the mantra of sometimes more isn't better. Sometimes more is just more. Yeah, that's a lot of headache. Can be. I think it to me, it just depends on what are you trying to do, and for some people, it's truly the love of the sport, and maybe they want to make money and make it like you said, you can afford to do some of this, some people actually do this for a living, and to teach each their own and they're allowed
to feed their families of course. And they work so hard for it. I completely understand.
Chris Detzel: Yeah. I don't, either way. There's some great running companies out there and putting on some great races and doing some really great things. It doesn't mean they're a bad person or [00:29:00] whatever.
It's just. They just have different goals and different things, but like you said,
Libby: you can bring out that competition. Oh, yeah,
Chris Detzel: there's going to be competition and it's going to be stiff at times, and there's got to be decisions made probably from both ends.
I'm sure if you had a race that you put on and it's 50 people showed up and your goal was 300 people might even make sense for you to do that race again. Yeah, I don't know how that works.
Libby: No, that's so true because that's very much how some of my races have gone over the years.
Dino Valley actually was in the negative for several years as we were trying to get the Western states qualifier. Yeah, I refuse to try to charge Western states qualifying. Fees because those have gotten very expensive for the qualifiers, but at the same time so I didn't feel like I could justify that, but I needed to be able to put on a race of that size and quality.
And so that meant running in the red and also that there were even a couple vendors that. Took hits for a couple of years with the [00:30:00] promise of once we get there, I can pay you true market value.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Libby: I really appreciate that you care about this journey. And so that's a case where luckily my business model in quotes ended up helping the whole community.
So it's just a different way to get to a result,
Chris Detzel: so let's talk a little bit about a race coming up that you have Dinosaur Valley. And so that's what November 23rd looks like. And so that's 20 days away or 24 days away. Don't
Libby: give me a heart attack. This is the biggest year we've ever had of this race.
So I am certainly feeling the crunch of we had never sold out more than like race week and now we sold out September 17th. So nine, nine weeks ahead of time.
Chris Detzel: You said it's a qualifier for for the Western states. That's right.
Libby: Yeah.
Chris Detzel: That's a big push or pull, right? [00:31:00]
Libby: Oh, yes, and I'm sure that's a big part of it, but also we did almost no marketing because while we are a qualifier, we are a very diverse race and we pride ourselves on being not just an every race.
Like a race that is just like any other one. It's trying to really have its own Vibe, you know just to say as the kids would it's well, there's this big
Chris Detzel: dinosaur I've been there once or twice and run. There's
Libby: two!
Chris Detzel: Yeah. It's been a while since I've done it, but I did do the race and I think I did the, I don't know if it was like a 20K or something, I don't remember, but something like that.
Closer to a half. And I just remember these dinosaurs. I remember the course being hard, but it wasn't easy, I
Libby: was going to say, I think you were doing it back when you had to cross the river. Did you? Probably. Yes. Yes.
Chris Detzel: That's right. Yeah. No
Libby: longer do that because. [00:32:00] We had a year of like very bad flooding like huge rains and I think it was 2018 And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, hey crossing that river is not terribly safe if the water is all of a sudden mid die
Chris Detzel: Yeah
Libby: So you got to do it before it changed It's so funny how some people hated that course and then some people just absolutely love that course But the 100 miler had to cross the river 12 times
Chris Detzel: So let's talk about that.
So one is that. You got done with these marathons and everything else. And then you're like, Hey, I'm going to put on a hundred milers. Look, you get the new year's double. Obviously I've done this. You have several races that have, ultras and them. So
Libby: tell me about doing road half marathons.
I had two road half marathons I was doing. And a hundred miler literally was my first trail race. To produce, and it was Big [00:33:00] Cedar 2014. It was in a completely different venue and it rained the entire weekend. Oh. And we had so few finishers. It was 12 finishers that first year in the hundred, and everybody was mud coated and it was such a beat down.
And then the next year we're like, it's going to be better. And instead, 17 hours in. The fourth rainstorm poured over us and didn't leave. It just kept raining and the flash flooding began. And here's the fun story. It feels biblical proportions, but it turns out all the copperheads go up hill when flash flooding happens.
So where you could find trail, there were snakes and the rest of the time there wasn't trail. My
Chris Detzel: gosh,
Libby: we canceled in the middle of it. And we thought, that's okay, 2016 will be different. And then six weeks before the 2016 race. [00:34:00] We lost the venue to a property dispute by multiple property owners in Dallas because this big cedar trail is in South Dallas.
And six weeks before with all these people signed up and I'm scrambling for a race venue, like I'm asking everyone I know what would be a good trail? What can we use? What can we do? And Dino Valley was one of the first ones I went to scout and they were Super nice and super easy to work with and they were excited to have us there So big cedar 2016.
I think the shirts actually say at the bottom at dino valley
Chris Detzel: Yeah,
Libby: and we stayed at dino valley I believe big cedar did finally work out all their disputes, but the trail system is smaller than it used to be and we stayed at dino valley and now it's I think this is going to be our eighth year You
Chris Detzel: Wow, that's pretty.
So let's all right eight years, for dino valley, but you have four overall Events now, is that right? Or do you have more because I see four on the [00:35:00] website
Libby: It's four events that cover One, two, three, four, five, six days because Dino Valley is a two day with race starts on both days. New Year's doubles a two day, but then I have cross Timbers Trail Run, which I inherited from the wonderful Teresa Estrada.
It is the oldest trail race in Texas. We're at year 44 and and I'm 44 years old, so I clearly could not have been producing it out of the womb.
Chris Detzel: Yeah,
Libby: she shows up in Volunteers at so many things. She is such a wonderful person and she directed Cross Timbers for 11 years. Yeah, and then I took it over. I think 2016 17 right around then.
And I've been producing it since. So it's 1 of those where it's just an institution. It's right at Lake Texoma. It's gorgeous shoreline trail. Have you run cross [00:36:00] timbers? I'm trying to remember. I feel like. Your wife has, too.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, she definitely has. I've been there, and I'm pretty sure I ran it.
I can't remember. I'm like 90 percent sure I ran something. I don't really do the, certainly not a hundred or fifty mile or anything like that. Usually I just do a half marathon, so. Close to that, I'll even do a 20 miler if I have to, but 20 or lower. So I think it did something there.
I'm pretty sure.
Libby: And we do cross timbers to we keep it alive and we keep it. Safe for the future that it will always be there for everyone to come back to or come to and the other event I produce, we do another 1 at cross timbers that came out of actually the pandemic in 2021, we had to cancel cross timbers because of the.
I think, oh, we were having a surge of the Delta variant, I think, and. And we got to like November and I said to [00:37:00] Teresa, oh, my gosh, have we ever skipped a year since 1982? And she's no. And I was like, oh, no, I can't do that to the longest and oldest trail race in Texas. So we did a pandemic redo 2021 edition in December where it was, I offered like a shortened course.
Where you had the five mile, but then you also had a hill repeat challenge And it ended up sticking Okay, I can believe that it was and so It was really celebrating monkey butt hill Which is right at the end of cross timbers race right before you get to the trailhead. Yeah, I did it And it's a 20 percent grade hill all it is
Chris Detzel: the same hill over and over it was fun
Libby: Yeah,
Chris Detzel: that's right, I forget which one I but yeah it was actually pretty fun I enjoyed it So you're still doing that one?
Okay, so
Libby: we kept doing that and we renamed it monkey butt mayhem [00:38:00] Yeah, and and we do it every May and it's a case of I think this year was the 1st year we broke even on that race and we'd done it 3 years. And but every year I was like, why am I doing this? We just lose the company's money and.
But after the race, like it's one of those suffer fests that everybody's just so happy to suffer through that afterwards you're like, okay, fine. We'll do it again. My team loves producing it. I have the best volunteer leads in the world. And for us we call it our company picnic. Because it's just a nice day.
It's many.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, it's, it's probably warm, but it's good, for the volunteers and yourself. It's probably, fair outside, and yeah,
Libby: we would rather it be in the 70s when we're volunteering.
Chris Detzel: Of course, we'll talk about that. At every single race there, there's a lot of volunteers no matter where you go.
And one of the things that I continue to hear and I think is true is [00:39:00] that your races wouldn't survive without the volunteers, and how do you one build that Crew volunteers, there's always kind of these people that will always be with you, and I'm sure you've seen that, but then there's always new people that come in and, how do you is there a program that you have?
How do you keep them incentivized and focused and excited?
Libby: It's really funny how organic I think that it both is and almost has to be.
Chris Detzel: Yeah,
Libby: because again, I think if you're. If you're coming for a payday, you've picked the wrong race series. That's not the heart of my events is like people say over and over again, how they feel that love.
And so finding the right leads is really important, especially when I produce races that are a safe space for a lot of underrepresented. Communities in running. I mean being black and running out in nature Camping wasn't even available to a lot [00:40:00] of the black community safely For a very long time and there's been entire, things out there on the internet But talk about that about even to the point where martin luther king Way back when wanted to go visit a national park and was denied Entry
Chris Detzel: wow
Libby: And instead, I believe he ended up in Canada and went to Banff.
But that's within a lot of our parents within their generation, that it's still a thing that a lot of us don't talk about is feeling safe. When we're out running in nature. And as a woman, I know I've gone to Mark cross timbers one year and because it's on the edge of a Lake all of a sudden I could hear that real raucous sound of a lot of men that have had a lot of beer and you don't know if the party is happening on a boat on the like road on the other side, cause you're in a wooded [00:41:00] forest area.
So I don't know where it's coming from. But I know I didn't feel safe.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Libby: And then you add to it, the LGBTQ community, being transgender is already an unsafe feeling in bathrooms and just walking around in the day to day, but it can be even worse. Out on a running trail, so
Chris Detzel: for sure,
Libby: right?
So it's important to me that my volunteer leads are all people who have felt safe at my events at some point. And then they wanted to be able to give back and help continue to create that environment for others. There's lots of races out there where people feel safe. It's another thing to go from all are welcome to all are invited and that you're Whatever identity you have, you feel like you were invited for that.
Not in spite of it. A lot of my team has grown over the years, but like Kenny Holman has been the head of the fence line aid station at dinosaur [00:42:00] Valley endurance run since the very beginning. And he inherited it because my very best friend, Jeremy day. We were all trail running in the early years of the 2010s and Kenny came out to help Jeremy at an aid station at my big Cedar race.
And when we moved venues Jeremy wasn't able to come out, but Kenny took up the mantle and he's been there since. And so that's eight years. And he's been a loyal
Chris Detzel: followers ever since, he loves. Loves the races that you do. He loves you. It's obvious. So does Andy, he's a very big supporter of what you're doing Andrew
Libby: rose is a big advocate for the queer community and it's something I admire so much about him Is that's deep in his heart is that people feel that safety?
So he and I have bonded so much about that aspect and just in general like [00:43:00] the love of the sport Yeah,
Chris Detzel: so intriguing. This has been a great conversation.
Libby: It's so timely, actually, because our volunteer lead and assistant lead group for dinosaur valley is basically doubling this year. So I've had to A little less organically, but it's still, it came from an organic place of Hey, would you be interested?
I don't want people to just go and send me an email and volunteer. I would love that too, but more often it's like, Hey, I've watched how you carry yourself. And I want you to be part of this.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Libby: So you're going to see some new leads and assistant leads at Dino Valley this year, including we have a foot care team.
Even we have a foot care tent.
Chris Detzel: My, my feet in some care,
Libby: yeah,
Chris Detzel: no, for sure. It's not all that far of a race, right? And that's the beauty about trail running is one, there's only very few trails [00:44:00] in Dallas. There's three or four. There's some, a couple in Fort Worth, one or two that are decent, but you have to go out a little bit, of the Dallas, Fort Worth area to get some really nice trails.
I'm not saying that there's not nice ones here in Dallas, but,
Libby: okay. You're being too diplomatic. So for those not in Dallas that are like, Hey, I want to know more about DFW running.
Chris Detzel: Yeah,
Libby: problem is that commercial development is king in Dallas and that historically trails were only developed in flood land areas that were considered leftovers.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Libby: And that we're now dealing with some of that as somebody who has recently moved to a new city it's so weird to be in a place that has value keeping green space pockets of different types for people and that it was in its original construction. And Dallas just never really did that.
Chris Detzel: They don't they didn't and it's obvious, you know There's a few trails that are decent.
But you know [00:45:00] when you go to probably You're in montreal, right? And we're in quebec. Is that right? I'm
Libby: in montreal. Yeah.
Chris Detzel: Yeah montreal Okay, i'm sure there's awesome things there and then you know when you go to Colorado or other places that have really nice trails, you're like, wow, we don't have anything like this.
Libby: Yes. Prioritized creating those spaces, but Dallas is now, unfortunately, in a place that there's so much commercial development. There's no spaces left to go, try to pull back even the city of Allen being there with New Year's devil. I was actually the chair of the parks and recreation board of the city for several years.
As well. And I had a small stint as a politician in my twenties and trail development was my big thing. So I got very involved in the parks board, but See, you should have said that
Chris Detzel: earlier because that actually probably is your love, that's I don't know if it's where it kicked off, but it's part of it.
That's the whole story. I love that.
Libby: It's actually before the running came up, but yeah, [00:46:00] But I've watched them have to buy back tracts of land to be able to make connectors or to make new parts. And that's in somewhere that's a highly suburban area that there's still land.
Chris Detzel: Yeah it's too bad.
What can we do now? But, but yeah, my favorite trail here in Dallas is Cedar Ridge is one of my favorites. It feels like that if it's there, there's some really good ones. There's grapevine area. There's a nice trail out there. North Ridge, but
Libby: North Shore, but I will agree with you.
I love Cedar Ridge. Cedar Ridge and I've spent many a day out there running escarpment repeats in my years. And except you can tell the scarcity of trail by how packed that parking lot. Oh, yeah. It's
Chris Detzel: crazy. It gets crazy, on the weekends specifically, but is there something that you really wanted to talk about that I completely missed?
Libby: No, but I think the exciting thing for the future with the active Joe is that and I've touched on it with individuals, but never too much publicly is that I [00:47:00] am now living in Montreal. My husband's work has taught us. I was going to ask you about this. And I'm actually under an open work permit as a spouse, which also includes that I can start a company.
Wow. Which means the possibility that there could be Quebec races for the Texans to come visit eventually. I'm pretty excited about that idea.
Chris Detzel: I you know, you got me excited. Would love to go out there You know, i've been to canada, but not over there, right? How awesome would that be?
Libby: I think their seasons are so different than ours that it would give some great travel potential of okay You love dino valley you do dino valley you do cross timbers and how about in june?
You come up and enjoy the beautiful weather that we have up here. That's so mild. Have you started looking
Chris Detzel: at that or is it not yet?
Libby: Not yet because a lot of people aren't aware how much of a French province Quebec [00:48:00] is and it's become even more so the last couple of years, it's been said as an Anglophone, that this was probably the worst time in the timeline to move here, considering none of
Chris Detzel: Yeah,
Libby: I'm learning quickly by full immersion as much as I can, but I'm at coffee shop level French and legally considering
Chris Detzel: you only been there for a few months or less
Libby: months.
Yes, that's not bad every day. And the baristas have adopted me at the coffee shops. They appreciate that somebody wants to try, but but you're legally required here to have everything in French as your 1st language, even though Canada is in English. Yeah, language country, Quebec actually overrules that with it.
And then even when you have English materials at a cafe, it's the fonts only allowed to be a certain percentage size compared to the French. And so I have some fluency that I need to get. Get figured out before I can go do that. Even when we bought our house here, [00:49:00] the entire house closing had to be done exclusively in French.
We had to hire an
Chris Detzel: attorney or something.
Libby: Yes, and so the attorney actually has to say the whole thing out loud in French, and you just sit there going, Okay, I don't
Chris Detzel: Well, I think a year from now, you should be Pretty more fluent, I would assume, if you're going to practice every day and then, maybe you start that journey then.
And, that's exciting though, is one is I'm glad to hear that you're going to keep these races and and continue that on, but then potentially expand,
Libby: Yeah, I get asked a lot if I'm going to keep my events and I just, I could never, I can't give them up. I love, I, I'm so particular about what I will produce.
That it makes it so hard to walk away. Yes, I've moved away, but 90 percent of race directing is computer work. Registrations are all handled online. We do all of our social media online. Did you
Chris Detzel: keep your house? And is it Frisco or?
Libby: Yeah we were able to keep the house. [00:50:00] My, my husband's traveling back so much and I'm traveling back so much that between the hotel and we kept the car there.
Makes sense. It ends up being quite, I like that.
Chris Detzel: I like that idea. My wife and I want to some point maybe move to Boston, but keep the house here and maybe a car here, and then just go back and forth if needed,
Libby: yeah, because we've been here two months and I think I've already been back to Dallas three times and he's been back for, and that's crazy.
Yeah, it's a lot, but it's really exciting. I think it's a good time for our girls who are 13 and 16. So one is at Concordia university and the other is a second year high schooler.
Chris Detzel: Okay. Two more years. That's crazy. Libby, this has been really great. I really appreciate it, and we'll get this out probably sooner rather than later.
I would like to promote Dino Valley a little bit if, some people hear about it.
Libby: You never turned down, getting the word out about my events, and also you got all the dirt out of me. I think I actually gave it up pretty willingly. Yeah,
Chris Detzel: you did, and I could have [00:51:00] asked some harder questions, you just seem to be, open, and I appreciate that.
Libby: Yeah, I'm always up for talking about where I've been in this world, because I feel like I've definitely seen some shit.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, maybe next time you come on, we'll talk the business of trail running and having these kind of races and what it takes to put them on, the inside scoop of how you're doing that, oh, I would totally
Libby: talk the transparency of it because like people don't realize. I just paid a six thousand dollar port a potty bill for this race in three weeks.
Chris Detzel: Exactly like Nobody thinks about that. They just think hey, there's port a potties. I'm gonna use it, like Not how much did it cost or what was what went into all that and parking getting permits, you know what?
You know how much money you have. I don't, you might have to talk about money, but more around, just the business of it, and how you know how to put one on and things like that. That'd be
Libby: yes. Or even I'd be interested, or even the timeline, people think oh, like we start a race. We finish a race.[00:52:00]
Yeah. And instead the actual itemized timeline for Dino Valley is about 80 items at a high level, and it's five. I see. Like it's almost minute to minute. Yeah,
Chris Detzel: that's it's crazy. We won't get into that today, but thanks Libby for coming on to DFW running talk everyone, please rate and review us if you like this I'm gonna know i'll get Libby to rate and review this as well right after this is published I'm gonna say hey Libby rate and review us.
Don't forget
Libby: no, I got you. Thank you for having me on chris,
Chris Detzel: of course. All right. Take care and we'll talk soon
Libby: Okay. Thanks
