Hard-Easy Every Day: How Jim Dietz Maintains 1:20 Half Marathon Times in His 60s

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

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

Jim Dietz: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on, Chris.

Chris Detzel: You are welcome. And hey, look like it's a pleasure and I'm so excited to have you on because several times have I been running. With the group of people.

And I meant to tell you on this, I call it the pre-show. A few folks would be like, have you talked to Jim Dietz? I was like, I don't even know Jim Dietz. And so I've heard about you a lot. And Jose Lopez has mentioned you several times. Oh yeah. He's been wanting me to get you on as well.

And I guess a few weeks ago you asked, you come up to me and goes, Hey, are you Chris? And I was like, yeah, and you introduce yourself. And I was like, sweet. I've been wanting to talk to you. Actually, a meeting of the minds at a

Jim Dietz: Plano

Chris Detzel: paces

Jim Dietz: race. Plano Pacers. I love Plano. Pacers, by the way.

Great group. Great group. I've been running with them since probably 83. Like

Chris Detzel: I, I've known about [00:01:00] them for a long time, but I just, I, this is my first year to start running with them and I'm impressed.

Jim Dietz: It's it's a well run group, great volunteers, great guys that have run it over the years.

You can guarantee it's gonna start at eight o'clock on the last Saturday of the month. You're not gonna get a short course ever. The courses are marked. Ken Ashby will never let you have a short course. So if you wanna run 5K, you're gonna run at least 5K or whatever distance, after you run, you go to your car to get a Gatorade and the results already uploaded.

It's amazing. It's a great group and it's, 12 races a year and workouts throughout the WI is every Tuesday there's workouts and there's prediction runs, and it's really a great group.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. And it's not expensive at all. It's 60 bucks or less. For the year, and I was like, I think I got a family.

So I signed up my son and my wife, and so it's a little more than that, but yeah, it's like ridiculously cheap. One race will cost you 50 bucks in general.

Jim Dietz: And a lot of them are, they have a lot more logistics with [00:02:00] police. Yeah, that's great. And all that. But if you want, if you wanna just test yourself and, in the winter you'll be going longer.

In the summer, you'll be going shorter. And if you wanna read and you can have a high level of runners out there, got, there's been world-class runners come out there. It's a lot of people have run through Plana Pacers.

Chris Detzel: It, there's impressive runners there almost every time. So I'll tell you a little story and we'll get into your journey, I promise.

I'm 50 and the, a lot of times I can go to these races. I have three or 4,000 people in Dallas. And potentially even get first in my age group. At 50 just out of hundreds of people, I get first, right? And I get, I'm fairly fast. I'm not Jim Dietz fast.

We'll get into that in a little bit, but, and but if I go to Plano Pacers at best, I'm gonna get third place in my age group.

Jim Dietz: Yeah. There's a lot of guys show up, a lot of serious runners that are just, and they're in the woods a little bit, and they come out and they show up there the last side of their month and here it goes,

Chris Detzel: yeah, it's it's an impressive group and impressive runners come to that. And so no doubt about it. And I was just talking about that the other day. Now [00:03:00] look, like I said, a lot of people have been talking about you and I've been looking at some of your times and they've been impressive.

When you came up to me last week or two weeks ago or so, whenever you and I had a conversation, you were like, yeah, I used to work at, what was it? Yeah. Ti can't get the two letters outta my mind. But you used to work at ti and you were telling me a little story about how you guys used to run and stuff like that.

So I wanna hear about that, but I wanna hear about how you got into running specifically. Okay. Yeah. And just let's start talking about it.

Jim Dietz: Okay. I started running 1980. So I was in college, I was 20 years old. I saw a movie about a guy running the New York City Marathon, and I'm from New York, I grew up in Queens.

Yeah. And I said, man, I wanna do that. So I went out and ran that day, and my family were pretty athletic and my sister was a very good runner. And I went out my first day and I don't know what I did eight miles or something, and I'm like, that's great. Yeah. Oh, I was just, I was fit.

I wasn't a great athlete, but I was fit, and so I started then and I never really, I guess I never really stopped. And I say that because even though I've had times where I haven't been [00:04:00] running, yeah, a runner is a runner. In the back of your mind, if you're a runner, you still wanna run again?

I started in 80. I ran in college for, one year. And when I was in college I was in upstate New York. It was a brutal cold at Clarkson University and I received a. Snail mail from ti they wanted to me to come down and visit them, yeah. And I came down in January to visit them. It was 75 degrees in Dallas and now it was, below zero, I'm sure where I was going to school.

So I said, man, this is the greatest place in the world. I gotta come down here now to clinch it. At that time, corporate running was

Chris Detzel: okay,

Jim Dietz: big enough that, there was big meets out in California every year, regional meets in Dallas and other cities, and it was a postgraduate area that collegiate runners ran in and competed on.

There's some, obviously the really top guys were trying to go professional, but a lot of people would get into corporate running after they graduated and TI had the best team. And on Runner's World Magazine was a picture of a lady [00:05:00] from TI running and I read the article, I'm like, man, oh man, this sounds pretty good.

So when ti recruited me, I'm like I can, I need a job and it's warm and I can run. And it's a good company too. Great company. Great company. And so I took the offer, came down, and it was a couple of days after I started. I went over to the Texan Activity Center and TI had leagues and clubs for everything back then, and I started running at lunch.

I'd run like usually seven miles at lunch and. The amount of talent at ti back then, distance, running, sprinting talent, it was legendary. We'd have workouts at lunch with, there was guys who were all Americans. I was one of the slackers in the club, I was like a four 16 miler.

And there was, that was fast back then. Really? It's still fast but you had, you, you had Jeff Roth, he'd been a 4 0 2. I dunno if you ever heard of Jeff Roth. Jeff's still in the area. Oh yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. His son even, was a great runner, but he was, I think he [00:06:00] came in second in the Dallas Marathon once and so he was, outta college.

And, we had another guy, Danny Lyon, who I think was all American in 10 case. A lot of times these guys would show up at lunch and we would just go after it every day at lunch. Workouts that I can't even imagine now. And it was fun, and that's what it was. Yeah. Then you would go to corporate events.

There'd be a national meet out in California where there'd be even greater talent at Stanford. This is all sponsored by t. It's T TI funded it, okay. Ti funded other companies funded it. You worked for a living. I was an engineer, but I worked hard. Yeah. Yeah. They would fly us out there and put us up and there'd be other things throughout the year, there was called the Manny Haney manufacturer Hanover Races, which then became chase races, where there'd be regional championships in Dallas and around the world.

The winning team would fly to New York City and run a race in New York City Park Avenue or something. Rock.

Chris Detzel: I feel like ti, I feel like ti is like a, was before their time. Like they were [00:07:00] just really doing some cool things. I think. Yeah, there,

Jim Dietz: there was other clubs like that, but ti they had a, they had somebody that, I believe what they had was an attitude of healthier workers are probably better for the bottom line.

They're better workers. Yeah. A lot of times I'd be running and I'm an engineer and I'd be trying to figure stuff out and I'd figure it out while I was running. So that break in the morning for the afternoon a hundred percent. So that was, we had a lot of talent on that team.

And, there's one memorable race to, to make the traveling team in some of these distance races though, that have time trials and.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Jim Dietz: How fun. They once had us go to Plano Pacers when it was up on Jupiter Road, back when Jupiter Road was, as far north as anybody went. And we went to a Plano Pacers race and the top 10 people in the race were from TI because it was a time trial to see who was gonna make the team.

So it was like a war, so it was a lot of fun and there was a lot of talent around the DFW area besides TI back then, but that's how I got started. And I just ran a corporate event. I'm retired now, but I just ran a corporate event for ti. [00:08:00] In May, down in Houston. Okay. It's still going on.

Chris Detzel: Did you actually, you started and finished at ti, like your career?

Jim Dietz: That's what I tell people.

Chris Detzel: Oh, okay.

Jim Dietz: And what I mean by that is I worked at TI in 82 to 97 and then TI got out of the defense systems. So they sold that to Raytheon. So I was transferred to Raytheon and I was there for two and a half years.

And then I came back to TI in 2000. It was there in entire time. Okay. So pretty much my employee number never changed. And I think I was a ti my whole life. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Pretty much besides the two years and yeah, I don't know, like the difference between, I'm sure there's a big difference between Raytheon and ti, it's still a big defense,

Jim Dietz: yeah. Yeah. And your ti I was huge in defense before the Cold War ended. Got it. I think we had one time had 30,000 people working on defense, if you can believe that. But everybody was doing defense back then so that's a little bit of, my early career and how I got involved in Dallas and how I started meeting a lot of the people and stuff like that in Dallas.

Chris Detzel: What kind of races was kinda your specialty back [00:09:00] then? What did you kind focus on?

Jim Dietz: Yeah. The mile and, okay. Okay. Yeah, and I'd write 10 Ks and stuff, but yeah.

Chris Detzel: Back then, miles big about

Jim Dietz: maybe five Ks started to get big. They started to get big, you before, I'd say before probably 83 or so, yeah.

You had, 10 Ks were really almost 10 K or five mile, or eight mile or 8.2. Sometimes it'd be odd distances. Like the Turkey trot was eight miles, right?

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Still is. And still going on.

Jim Dietz: Yeah. And five KK kind of came on and it opened up racing to a lot more people. Because 10 K was somewhat challenging and.

You can a 5K and a 10 K. There's a lot more thinking going on in a 10 K. So it's easy to,

It's easy to, 10 Ks are tough, man. 10, 10 Ks are tough, especially in the weather. When you get hot down here, 5K is nice. You can think I can make it through this somehow, or whether, yeah, sounds like a 5K and 10 k.

I, I did a couple of marathons, but I'm not a marathoner, and I think what,

Chris Detzel: 'cause you do a lot of 5K now. Now, did [00:10:00] you, what was kinda your best kind of times and stuff

Jim Dietz: outta curiosity? I ran a 1511. Okay. Wow. Yeah. That's pretty impressive. Younger.

Chris Detzel: You're still killing it, like you're hitting eighteens and stuff.

Jim Dietz: Yeah I've, I'm still,

Chris Detzel: how old are you? Like 65, right?

Jim Dietz: 65. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Jim Dietz: And you're still hitting eighteens. I go into seventeens when I'm, in shape. Exactly. So that's crazy. But I don't How do you maintain that man? It's. This is, what do you say? Not suitable for anybody else.

My training style is not what you recommend to people if you're a coach. Okay. I enjoy running a lot and I enjoy I enjoy challenging myself. So my training strategy and Jose Lopez even tells me about this, he goes, you can't run hard like that all the time. I'm older than Jose. I could tell him What's what?

Yeah. You're a little bit older. Yeah. So I generally run hard. Easy every other day, which is not recommended by anybody. So I'll have a tempo, and I do a lot of tempo runs. A [00:11:00] lot of tempo runs. I'll do 5, 6, 7 miles hard with maybe a warmup or something, and then the next day might be six or eight.

Relatively easy, and so that kind of always keeps you sharp for me, and I enjoy it. I just enjoy the challenge every day of setting a goal. Yeah, it, I don't do, back in the day when I was younger, I do a lot of track work. I go to the track, but I don't do track work now. I go to the track to set pace and I'm, I can understand my pace pretty close.

But I don't do a lot of quarters and stuff like that anymore. I do a lot of what's called fart, which is just maybe run a 5,000 on a track with a, the first a thousand hard and then a hundred meter relative break where you drop back, 10 or 15 seconds, a mile pace, and then you pick it back up again and just do these types of workouts.

Just for, I get, I enjoy it. So that's where my being able to maintain my pace comes from. I think, just doing a lot of stuff like that.

Chris Detzel: Let's go back. So in your twenties you ran a lot with [00:12:00] ti and did they continue on with these races for a

Jim Dietz: while? Yeah sure. They were going strong until 2000.

I've, it was still big in 2000, in early two thousands, and then May maybe mid, mid to late two thousands. And then they don't have national meets anymore. They do have regional meets. Like I said, there was a Houston meet in May down in Houston and with ti and other teams down there, but it's not nearly as big as it was, although they still have the man, the, jP Morgan corporate challenge. I think that was just a couple of weeks ago. And then if, I think if, probably if you are in that and your team does well, you still go to New York City for, a meet. They still have that. Yeah. They still they still have it at a lesser level, but it was really big.

You would get all there's so

Chris Detzel: many out there now, so it's hard to

Jim Dietz: connect with. Yeah. There's lot with, there's a lot of options now, right? Yeah. There's a lot of other different things to do and the cycling wasn't as. Big, I'd say back in the day it is now. It is now, athlons and stuff weren't really big and trail running I'd say wasn't as big.

So now all that stuff is, there's [00:13:00] alternatives to athletes, for people to challenge themselves, all

Chris Detzel: kinds of things out there. I love it though. I think that, I think that's great and. It does seem so correct me if I'm wrong, because I feel like, and maybe it's just 'cause it's my generation and I just don't know because of what you just said, but it feels like there's been an explosion in the running community over the last several years.

So Uhhuh, I know it's been going on for a long time. Obviously you did it in the eighties and there's a big group of people that were doing it in the eighties, but it seems like there's races for everybody. I'm looking at these running clubs and there's literally 50 or 60 running clubs in DFW.

And right. Like I look at this one running club, run it up for example, and they only run a little bit, it's 5K, but there's literally hundreds of people there every time and. You got Pegasus, you have the sloths, you have WRC, you have Fort Worth, the Cal Town, the Plano, Pacers, the Plano, all kinds.

I, I just keep going off

Jim Dietz: prosper's. Got one. I'm up in Prosper. Prosper's, got a running group now.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Jim Dietz: So it feels like everybody's running,

Chris Detzel: it's.

Jim Dietz: I think it is, it's there's, I think one of the [00:14:00] differences probably is there was less groups back in the early eighties.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Jim Dietz: But they were probably, I'm gonna say more exclusive.

And by that I mean it was much more competitive and the world's opened up more and it's, there's a lot more people that are. Competing. Now you can't get into New York City Marathon now, except for, you have to have a lottery or have a com, a time or something like that.

Like Boston for example. Yeah. Yeah. And Dallas sells out. Dallas sell sells out. Yeah. So you know, if you're not locked in, and you start thinking about that in October, maybe too late to get into Dallas. That's right. Which is a great race, great. Put on what a great team. I love it.

I love it. Yeah. So I think it's a lot more people, it's a lot more inclusive now. And I've heard you say it on another podcast, it, the COVID lockdown kind of running remained an option,

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Jim Dietz: To get outside was a good thing and running remained an option and some people maybe got introduced to it.

Hadn't been experienced before. It's a social thing. It's a healthy thing. It does good for your mind, I [00:15:00] think,

Chris Detzel: yeah. It's interesting. I was talking to one race director and he is look, it started to really boom in 2018, 19, right? It just, you start, started to see a big uptake and then obviously during COVID it just died.

Jim Dietz: And then you'd have to find a race. You had to find a race, and you were able to find some of them, but they were yeah, under the radar.

Chris Detzel: It was difficult. You had to spend some time and effort actually finding something that you can go race. But then he did say it took a little bit after COVID 'cause people were still a little bit hesitant, but now he's man, it's all full on.

It's hard to even keep up. Yeah. As you look at. Then, so you were running five Ks miles and stuff like that. Did you ever get down to what was your best mile? Was it the 4, 4 16? Yeah. Four 16. 16, okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's a tough one. They just did the marathon or the trial.

What was it? The deal to go to Tokyo this weekend. I don't know if you watched that. The Olympic kind of stuff. No.

Jim Dietz: Did you saw that kid? Yeah. It's the most amazing performance of a high school [00:16:00] athlete ever.

Chris Detzel: I know. Like it was a 1500, what was it? Yeah, the

Jim Dietz: 800 He did, which is the fourth fastest time.

In the history of the United States, the 18th fastest time in the world, and he's 15 he's gotta go back to school as a junior here in a couple of weeks.

Chris Detzel: I saw that. I watched it actually. Shocking

Jim Dietz: performance.

Chris Detzel: I think that what do you contribute to or attribute to all this fast speed nowadays?

Do you think it's technology or people are just getting faster? People are always getting faster, right? Always seems people are getting

Jim Dietz: faster. Yes, people are getting faster because, it's not news if people get slower. Okay? Yeah. So if there's more people are working, there's gonna be unicorns pop out, like Cooper Lukin house.

And so the shoes definitely make a difference. When I race, I wear a carbon plated shoes. And when you put, the first time I ever put a pair of Don on, I felt like I was cheating. I was willing to cheat if that's what it took. Everybody is, everybody's wearing them. It levels the playing field.

So that helps. There. I think. [00:17:00] It prob, that's probably a big part of it, the shoes. But when you raise the bar, when you see somebody else do something like, they've been, it was before the super shoes, that high school just started breaking four minutes again. That wasn't done for a long time.

And now there's a wave of them. Doing it.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. It's crazy now. Yeah. And

Jim Dietz: but somebody had to break back through, that they hadn't done it since the sixties and all of a sudden, I think it was Alan Webb was the guy that did it and now you have four, I think there was two guys from one high school did it this year.

So it's shocking. We had a guy from the Dallas Fort Worth area do it a couple years ago, Reed Brown. So when people start to see that barrier broken down, and it really doesn't mean that much, it. There's a lot of psychological stuff in running where you're mentally not sure if you can go through, but if you see somebody else can lemme see.

I'm probably not gonna die, so lemme try this out and see what happens.

Chris Detzel: Somebody else did it.

Jim Dietz: Somebody else did it. Maybe I can do it. Yep.

Chris Detzel: There's this guy at Plano Pacers, his name's Mike. You know him, I'm sure of it. He's about 59. He's an attorney. Lives out in Plano ish. Oh, Mike held, I think

Jim Dietz: Mike.

Yeah, Mike held, yeah, [00:18:00] that's

Chris Detzel: right.

Jim Dietz: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Talked to him and he's I can't never beat him yet. I get close, it's like a runner. Yeah, he's a great runner and I was like that's, I know I'm gonna beat him one day. Like maybe it's 'cause he is getting older and I'm not.

Yeah. I'm, he's not slowing down. Nine years younger,

Jim Dietz: you're gonna have to speed up or get in shoes or something like that.

Chris Detzel: But the 5K, I've gotta try to I was sticking with him for the first mile or two. So it's what you said, and then he beats me, but it's kinda like what you said okay, I'm gonna stick with that guy and then I'm doing it for a minute and then he still beats me, but eventually I'm gonna get him.

Yeah. Maybe it's 'cause he turned 60 or 60, I don't know. Whatever. I beat him one day, that's my, he

Jim Dietz: challenges you to say, maybe I can be a little more uncomfortable to try to stay a little closer to him and Yeah. That's what you gotta do.

Yeah.

Chris Detzel: And I've been doing a lot of those five cases this. Summer just to help in my half, but so did you ever get into half

Jim Dietz: marathons or full marathon? Oh yeah. I do half marathons. Okay. My season is, I've done three marathons, okay. My first one I did when I was in college, I had a guy I ran cross country with and he was heading [00:19:00] out to the west coast.

I was coming to Texas and he had a car, and two weeks before the Boston Marathon in 82, he goes, Hey, you wanna run Boston? And I said, yeah, let's do it. We were bandits, we didn't have numbers,

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Jim Dietz: And so two weeks before it, we figured we, we should probably do a long run. So we went out and did a 14 miler and we figured that'd be fine.

And we went to Boston and ran it. And that was my first marathon, unofficially. Did you hate it? I loved it, except for 20, I made it to 23 miles pretty comfortably. And then I had a struggle for the last three miles, and it was a real struggle.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, those last three made you probably feel like death basically.

I, I

Jim Dietz: made it all the way through the Hills and Heartbreak Hill and all that, and then I really struggled. I liked it, but most people really enjoy the marathon. They challenge it, I think. Yeah. I'm a little bit different in that I to do the marathon, but I like to do other things.

I like to race throughout the year and challenge myself throughout the year. I usually treat. Say September. To [00:20:00] February as my long distance season. I run half marathons in, Dallas, I do like the Austin three MI do the DRC to Dallas, the Austin 3M Austin International now. And then after that I'll and may I dump.

Cow Town a few years ago, and then the rest of the year I'll just, I start doing 10 Ks and stuff and wind my way down to the miles and then, wait to build back up again. So I do half marathons, in the season in Texas. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. I'm a big fan of the half marathons myself.

I've got one coming up in September. It's a downhill in Utah, so I'm a little bit That's okay. Yeah look, I want hit really fast. I'm trying to hit a 1 25, so we'll see if I can get it right, alright, very good. Yeah. But but yeah, do you have a specific half that you like the most or?

Jim Dietz: I think two of them I like the most. I love Dallas. It's a great operation and I love the city and, I'm out here and prospering the sticks, yeah. I love Dallas and I know the logistics of Dallas and the logistics are pretty easy. I've done New York City. Those logistics are pretty hard.

Yeah. And [00:21:00] then, so I usually do that and then I'll do, I'll go down to Austin and do the, in the third or fourth week. Of January. I'll do the 3M. It's now called the Austin International, which is a fun, I did it last year. Yeah, it's a fun race. I like that. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: It was tough this year because it was so cold and windy.

Jim Dietz: I was like, man, it was cold. Yeah. I remember the starting line. It was. 28 or 29 degrees at the start. Windy. I'm okay with that. And windy. I'm okay with that at the start. 'cause I know I'm gonna warm up. I'd rather have that than 65. So I do those, a couple of years ago it was a corporate thing.

I ran cow Town with ti so that's what I do. And I don't do too much of the traveling ones. Not for any reason other than I get my full of them in Texas and I enjoy the wind in Texas.

Chris Detzel: How do you train for a half? What's your kind of philosophy?

Jim Dietz: Year round. I probably do say now.

I got a little hamstring problem, came up a couple of weeks ago and I finally started to take time off and I'll just take [00:22:00] time off until it goes away and I'm biking. But this time of year I'll do 50 miles a week, but the second it gets cool, I'll start doing 60, 65 miles a week, and I'll do that week in weekend.

I'll get a couple of 70 mile weeks in there. But most of those runs are pretty intense. I might go the whole week and get. Say 65 miles average, six seven minute miles for the whole week. And there's a lot of long runs, a lot of long, I say long for me for a half marathon, 8, 9, 10 milers at a pretty good pace.

And that's what I do.

Chris Detzel: I don't do

Jim Dietz: I just six, seven or eight

Chris Detzel: minute miles for seven

Jim Dietz: minute miles. Yeah, I'll do the whole week will average seven minute miles pretty fast. It's, that's, that's what, that's the answer to your question. Yeah, that's what I do. I run a lot of stuff at sub seven minute pace.

Chris Detzel: That's crazy. And it works for you though.

Jim Dietz: And it works for me. It wouldn't work for anybody else doing this for a long time. It wouldn't work for maybe somebody else, but that's what I do. And then, you get a big boost, this weather we have here now, while it's relatively good for Texas, this is still hot.

It's still [00:23:00] hot. And the big thing is dew point humidity. But the second that, the second, that dew point drops into the fifties, the forties. All of a sudden everything's, feels great. And so you get that boost. And then if you've built a nice base in the summer, you naturally just have to stretch it out a little bit.

But I don't do 20 milers. I don't do, I rarely do stuff over 12 miles. Rarely. I don't need to.

Chris Detzel: I'm maybe, I feel like I'm similar to you. It's funny. Not exactly. 'cause I don't run that fast on all of my miles, but, I like the idea of 10 miles being my long run.

Jim Dietz: I think you could do half marathons on 10 miles.

There's no problem

Chris Detzel: outta town. Yeah. I'm running 40 miles a week and for me. That's gonna be enough. 'cause I, I remember running, I can go run a half marathon pretty quick every month if I wanted to, that's the thing about You can do that. Yeah, exactly. K or five.

Or 5K for sure. You can just go every week. You can go every week twice. Yeah. I do.

Jim Dietz: I do, I'll run two hard K, five Ks in a week, no problem. [00:24:00] Yeah. But you can do that. And I think it's successful. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: So now when you go to some of these races, are you trying to win 'em or when you're, I'd say half is tough, but

Jim Dietz: yeah I don't try to win.

I don't try to win if I'm, I generally don't wanna win a race. And the reason I say that, and sometimes I do because. I probably won't push myself as much. I always like to chase somebody, yeah. And so the, I'm generally competitive in my age group, yeah, of course. But I'm not gonna, you go to the Dallas half marathon and, there's a lot of people in Dallas, but what are you running nowadays?

What's your half

Chris Detzel: marathon time? Just under one 20. Dude, you probably went in all your H groups.

Jim Dietz: Yeah. I generally do.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah. Nobody's, it's say nobody, but it's rare to find somebody 65 plus, hitting one twenties or below.

Jim Dietz: Yeah. There, there's, part of it is some of 'em don't run anymore, yeah, of course. That's part of it, and. While I have this hamstring injury, I stay generally injury free. Or if I do get an injury, I'm able to [00:25:00] cross train like I'm biking now and I'm biking with as much intensity as I would if I was running. So I don't lose cardio at all. And

Chris Detzel: yeah. So what they wanna talk about is consistency.

You've been doing this for a really long time, and I mean you've stayed injury free one. Let's talk about the injury free. Is there anything specific you do? Is it the cross training? Anything you can contribute? No. No.

Jim Dietz: I used, I get this question a lot 'cause the amount of people in the age group go down as you get older.

And I used the analogy of, let's say there's a guy in the NBA, he's seven foot tall, and they go, Hey man, how'd you get to be seven feet tall? I don't know. I, I didn't do anything. This is what I was blessed with. So my biomechanics are, I have flat feet, I have Morton's toe, but I'm able to run pretty much injury free.

I get things, I had a stress fracture in my femur last year, but. That was 'cause I was overdoing it, but I'm generally injury free, and I think it just has to be that's a good car. That's the one that was made on a good line. It's a Honda, versus a car that has [00:26:00] problems or something.

Or Toyota, whatever. Or Toyota, yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's not a car that's the first one off the line and they're still trying to get the. The tolerance is down, so I'm able to run and it doesn't seem to bother me and I bounce back pretty quick from workouts, so it's just something I have.

Do you find as I, I don't stretch. I don't stretch, don't cross train less like I'm doing now because I got this nagging hamstring. So now I cross train, but I don't do it. I'm not saying you shouldn't, but I don't. Yeah, I

Chris Detzel: don't feel like you're a good influence here on the audience that

Jim Dietz: I'm not a good influence.

No. I said you're being

Chris Detzel: a bad influence here. I'm just joking.

Jim Dietz: It's I am

Chris Detzel: consistent though, so I do talk about that. I guess my question is, you could talk about consistency. It's really hard for all those years from, you were doing it as a high schooler, all the way until today.

You're 65 years old.

Jim Dietz: Yeah, I take some time off. I, there's a story, a sub-story in there where, yeah, let's do it. I've taken and I've always been a runner since I started running in my mind, and I've always wanted to run, but there's been times, [00:27:00] like towards the end of my career. I quit running and I put on a lot of weight to tell you the truth, of course. Yeah. And of course happens because I was eating the same, but the key was I retired and I said, I gotta get back into shape. And I knew a trick that would work if you. Exercise, you'll lose weight. I knew it worked. I didn't have to believe anybody or anything. Yeah. I had that experience by myself.

Yeah. So I started walking, I started running more. I started losing weight. How much weight did you gain? How much? 60 pounds. Damn. Okay. 60 pounds. But when I started running again, when I retired, I haven't

What'd you retire? 60, 10 years ago. Oh, 55. Yeah. 55. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah, it was nice. It was nice. I was, yeah, I was blessed with that, for different reasons. So it's, I started to get healthy again and get priorities in my life, right? And I knew it was gonna work, so I did it and slowly the weight came off and.

You didn't stop. I didn't stop. [00:28:00] And weather doesn't phase me. Hot, cold, whatever, hills, whatever. I go out every day. I go out every day. It doesn't bother me. Yeah. If it's rain. Sounds like my wife. Yeah. It just, I'll go out. She doesn't care. No, I don't care. I don't care at all. I got the clothes, I got different shoes.

They get wet. I got different shoes and rotation. No problem. So I'm consistent. Very consistent. Yeah. How long did you take off? Took off over 10 years. Yeah I really did. I really had, I was racing pretty competitively in, in when I was 43. Okay. And then I started to fade out and didn't run consistently, and I picked it up at 55.

So I took 12 years off. Okay. Wow. Yeah. Almost 12 probably. You picked it back up at 55. I picked it up at 55. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: I think at that time, life is, can be hard, right? Who knows? There's, yep. People, it's funny because I look at some of these college kids that, did amazing things in college and they get scholarships and they go out and they're now having to provide for their family, get, [00:29:00] have a family, find a job, and just yeah.

Throw 'em. And it's hard, and a lot of what I've seen too is to I didn't really start running, I ran in high school and stuff, but. I really didn't start running until I was 37, so I quit, in my twenties, right? And then just didn't pick it up again until 37. Really? I never did that much distance.

5K was probably the most 10 or whatever, but I saw a lot of 40-year-old men, realize, oh my God, like I'm just really overweight and outta shape and I get better, get doing, and I find that 40 year olds plus, are. Way into more, more running. It's so competitive.

Jim Dietz: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Jim Dietz: It's crazy. It's, yeah. The, to win your age group and a masters is getting tough, right? Yeah. There's a lot of that. I'm not gonna win

Chris Detzel: masters anymore.

Jim Dietz: E every time you flip over that five year barrier, you got a, you got New hope, right? 50, 55. Now it's five.

Alright,

Chris Detzel: I got a chance at the fifties, yeah.

Jim Dietz: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: But so that's interesting. So the consistency for you you took off 10 years, which is quite a bit, but how do you feel now I know you're [00:30:00] slightly injured, it sounds like you're slowly getting injured every now and then.

Like last year you were injured, now you're slightly injured. Last year

Jim Dietz: was overused this year I was probably, I just turned 65, so I was pretty intense this spring. Very intense. Okay. Yeah. Trying to do some times when I just turned 65 and and. I, since I don't take stuff off, it just kind, it's been going on for two months and I finally just decided, I'd like to.

Be injury free, bug free. And I know it's gonna go away. It's not that severe. It just hurts. Yeah. And so I decided, hey, I might as well take the time off now. It's hot, I'll bike, I won't lose too much fitness. And yeah, I'll be back on it and I can get serious about, going longer in the fall, which is the nice part of the year to run.

This time is just putting in your miles to be able to enjoy the fall.

Chris Detzel: I agree. If you can get some fitness into the summer, man you're gonna be, like you said earlier, like you're just gonna be flying or feel like it anyways in the Yeah. Oh, you will, winter time,

Jim Dietz: yeah. You go further, faster, everything. So it's a more enjoyable,

Chris Detzel: yeah. Can you name a race [00:31:00] that, you just was the most amazing race? What's your, your best race ever that you can think of?

Jim Dietz: My best race ever. Good question. I tell you. I like Dallas. I like the Dallas Half Marathon a lot.

So is there a specific time, like

Chris Detzel: a year that you ran it and you're like, oh my God, it was so good because of

Jim Dietz: Yeah, I ran, it was a couple of years. I ran it this last year and it didn't do that great, but I think it was a couple years ago. I ran like a one hot, by

Chris Detzel: the way, this last year. Yeah,

Jim Dietz: that's got me maybe it was two years ago.

Or three. I ran like a one 20. It was three years ago. 'cause they changed the course two years ago too. And it was long. Yeah. So it was three years ago. I think I ran a 1 20, 23 or something and, I felt strong finishing. Yeah. And even though I've done faster than that down in Austin, Austin's a downhill course.

Yeah. So I think that was a great race. I think I had a good buildup. It was probably good weather and, I, it. I never felt like I was running outta gas. I was strong all the way to the end. I probably finished [00:32:00] pretty strong. I've had some pretty good races outta Plano Pacers when it gets into the fall and you get the nice weather and you just, you know that all the summer training is coming through and it cools off.

And I've had a couple of good 15 Ks out there getting ready for marathons to have marathon season. Yeah, I do the shorter stuff. I think the more memorable stuff's probably the longer stuff. 'cause you got a lot of time to deal with it and you gotta have a lot of perseverance and you're out there an hour and a half and you gotta kind red liner for an hour and a half.

That's it's memorable.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. I remember I dunno if it's two or three years ago I ran that half I was telling you about in Utah it's the downhill, it's a rebel race. Okay. And so it's probably 2,800 feet of downhill, for the half marathon. I think it's 5,000 feet of down, 5,000 feet of for the full, which I don't recommend, but do what you want to.

It's fine. But I remember I've never ran so fast in my life, like for six of those miles. Like it was, I just couldn't believe it. Yeah. It was 'cause of the downhill, but I didn't know I had that in me. Yeah. [00:33:00] And so the last three miles were really difficult because, it was no longer downhill.

It was just flat and you actually yeah. It's got hot, but it's those kinds of races. I'll remember because when I looked down at my time, it was like, for me, I had 6 13, 6 14, 6, 13, 6 26. I was like, holy cow. Like I don't, so I just. I felt hey, I have that in me. And I ran a really good race, like three in Houston that the next, that next year, which was two years ago, I think, one, yeah, two years.

And, it's just, it was a fun race. And so I just, I think there's always a race that you'll remember, that's probably one I'll always remember. Yeah.

Jim Dietz: I, one of the memorable things this year, did you run 3M or the Austin International? You said this last year? I did, yeah, this

Chris Detzel: last year.

Jim Dietz: So the first, we both at it stop. I think the first water stop, I had a drink of water and it had ice crystals in it. Okay, the second water stop. It was a solid block of ice. I guess they put the water out the night before [00:34:00] and it got better as it went on. But, that, that was pretty memorable. The start of that race was pretty memorable.

But I like the temperature to be 28 or 30 to start is fine for me, as long as I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna warm up pretty quick,

Chris Detzel: I started off that race really well. I was really cold, so I remember it just being freezing at first. 'cause of the wind. Yeah, then it got better, but then my hamstring or something just tightened up at mile six.

So I had to stop start walking and probably for half, not half a mile, but probably like for six minutes. I just kind. I was like, then I started going again and I started feeling a little bit better and then got going again. But that's never happened to me. Like I've never had that happen to me during our race.

Yeah. So could have been the cold or I don't know what it was.

Jim Dietz: Could have been. Sure. There's, it's pretty good drop over the first eight miles. So you got a bit of the downhill in Austin too. It feels great when it's going well. And then that wind turns into a pretty strong tailwind when you, after about a mile and a half, you got a nice tailwind for a bit in Austin, which kind of makes it fun too.

Chris Detzel: That's right. What do you have planned? What's your future Of [00:35:00] just the same old stuff or what?

Jim Dietz: Yeah, I don't, my daughter runs Okay. Matter of fact, she just, she's come down and she ran Austin the last couple years with me, the half marathon. So she's moved to Chicago about a year ago, and she runs up there and we've talked about doing a marathon, maybe a Chicago marathon, so maybe I'll do that, but no specific date, but besides that, I look forward to the weather getting cooler and then run, run, Dallas and then, probably the DRC maybe Cow Town. We'll see. And then I enjoy just going out there for, some of the bigger races. Like St. Patty's Day is a good one in Dallas, I lo I love the Turkey trout, but I'm usually, I got a traditional, what I do on Thanksgiving, so I'm not around for too much.

I like to go to Plano Pacers 'cause I know there'll always be competition out there. Always. You may have somebody out there that, still a strong runner in college or, you know you're gonna get some competition, I know enough of the guys, you can pace off of some people.

So I like to do that. And then I just like to. [00:36:00] A lot of my satisfaction is just challenging myself on a regular basis. I get a lot of feedback and positive feedback from that. I like to say I'm, I tend to do this. One of the things that some people have asked me for advice sometimes is like every, I do this for every workout.

Nevermind every run. Yeah, exactly. I have three goals for every workout or every run, and the first one is gonna be, I should be able to accomplish that. I may have to hurt a little bit, but I should accomplish that. The second one's gonna be that'd be pretty good. And the third one's gonna be, I used the word heroic.

My daughter laughs at it, but the one third one's gonna be heroic. And, but I'm gonna try to get at least the first one and it things go south on you. You can still get victory one, and if things really go good too. Most of the time though, I hit all three, but I do that even in almost every workout, so I do that throughout the week. I do that in races and it helps you stay focused if things go south and still claim a victory,

Chris Detzel: yeah. I think that's a good mental state to be. [00:37:00] Do you run with community at all with people, or is it you just do this solo?

Jim Dietz: I don't, because, I'm retired and. So I kinda get up and do my thing and go out and I, I had the luxury of not having to work for a living. I go when I wanna go, when I wanna go, and while I run in any weather, if it's raining, I might give it an hour. And if it doesn't, yeah, okay.

I'll go out and it, I'd run with people sometimes. There was a, up here in Prosper, there's a couple of running groups up here. The real one is the Prosper Running Club, but there was a bunch of other guys that formed. A group on Strava, and we used to run like every Wednesday together and run races together.

That's wound down some, but so I do most of my running by myself. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. You have your own philosophy. Not a lot of people run like you do, every other day. You're right. Basically sprinting. Yeah.

Jim Dietz: It's not recommended. Not really sprinting, but

Yeah, going hard every other day probably isn't recommended. And but it's funny

Chris Detzel: that you say that. 'cause my wife, like on Saturday I ran 10 miles and, I ran fairly [00:38:00] fast with the group. 'Cause they were running about eight 15 to eight thirties, and had they, we did 11 miles.

So at 10 I just said, okay, I'm walking around because I was so tired. Yeah. I did walk the rest, but I walked most of it. And then, but then Sunday I always go out and run with Jose.

Jim Dietz: Yeah, right

Chris Detzel: at 6:00 AM on Sundays at Sunset. Up there at Norbrook or

Jim Dietz: something?

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah, it's at White Rock and yeah.

We go to Sunset Bay is where we meet at 6:00 AM Okay. And a Sunday wants come out and, I was so tired, I guess it was yesterday. And it's man, and my wife was like, look, Chris, you can't do that on Saturdays if you wanna go do 10 months. I gotta get that in sometimes, yeah. Maybe it's not 10, but, so Yeah. I don't know how you do it, that's pretty impressive. And I'm not sure if it's recommended or not, but it works for you.

Jim Dietz: It works for me, and there is, there's probably, I wouldn't coach anybody to do it, but it's what I've been able to do.

I enjoy it and I enjoy the process as much as anything. Like you said, what a race is you looking forward to? I enjoy running. Yeah. I enjoy, I think it's good. Everybody [00:39:00] has something they can do. Whether that's running, cycling, I could see how cycling is very, you can get into cycling a lot.

I like it when I cycle, but I usually only cycl when I'm injured. But it's dangerous.

Chris Detzel: I like to cycle, but it's. Here in Dallas, I'm golf.

Jim Dietz: Yeah. Out here in Prosper, it's a little bit less dangerous, I think although I ran on a lot of, i, I bike today on a lot of trails it's good to have something to do.

And the running for me, it's the process that I enjoy as much as anything else. I enjoy racing. I enjoy just doing it every day and challenging myself every day.

Chris Detzel: So I have another question around kind of age, right? Yeah. So you retired at 55, right? And I've seen a lot of retirees not find something that.

Interest them. And obviously you found running. How important do you think that is? Not just run, whatever it is. I feel like a lot of people retire and they don't have anything to do afterwards. Yeah. And they get bored. Like I, my neighbors are watching TV all day. Yeah. I, and I don't know what the hell they're doing, but they're bored as hell.

You can tell. And I'm like,

Jim Dietz: I'm pretty busy all the time. Yeah. I I think what I. [00:40:00] I get to do some of the stuff now that I wish I could have done earlier, which includes I love reading. I read the Dallas Morning News. I read the Wall Street Journal every day. I read The Economist, I'm pretty involved in my church.

I work with the kids at the church. I do work around the house. Probably not as much as my wife wants me to do, but I do work around the house. We just got two puppies. I don't know why we got 'em, but we got two puppies a couple of months ago and they're a handful. That's tough. Puppies, Australian Shepherds.

I say puppies. Oh my goodness. I just weighed them a few minutes ago. They're both 50 pounds already. Now there's all stuff for me to do. I have stuff to do. All. All the time. It very little of it involves watching tv, I

Chris Detzel: love that. That's

Jim Dietz: great. I look, so I'm never bored. I've been, just recently I've said let me get into AI a little bit and I don't have to do it for a living, which I know everybody does now.

But I use AI to write code that I use in a program to program stuff. 'cause I love that. I wanna see how efficient can it write code. It's perfect. Code error free. Pretty good. No problem. Pretty [00:41:00] good. I like to keep on learning and I like to know what's going on in the world and see how the sausage is made in the world.

Yeah. Even though I don't have to do it anymore. You're an engineer, man. That's just Exactly, that's what we, that's what we're interested in. Yeah. We wanna, we'd like to see how things connect, even if we don't have to do 'em anymore. I like to know how pushing on this, the Fed doing this or the, the unemployment doing this or whatever.

I like to see how the world's connected around the world and with people. And yeah. I get that some people, I've had some friends that have retired and go back to work, and I haven't really felt that nudge yet, and I don't think I'm going to,

Chris Detzel: You, now you have a whole entire life of being busy doing different things that Yeah.

Yeah. You'd probably have to give up that you might not wanna give up. It'd, it'd be tough.

Jim Dietz: It'd be tough to do yeah. I've got my routine right now that fills it out in the day. So yeah, it's, I get, you have to, maybe it's, without being philosophical, you have to find out what your values are, and while I worked hard in my career, there's other things in life that matter, so I wasn't [00:42:00] completely.

Tying my self worth to my career, so I'm satisfied with other things that give me value and that I can contribute in the world.

Chris Detzel: I love that. And I know it's not about running, but I was very curious 'cause I want to retire when I hit closer to 55 for sure. So I think I'm close. We'll see. But is there anything that I didn't ask about your running kind of career that I should have asked or that you're like, I wanna talk about this, or anything I missed?

No,

Jim Dietz: I mean there's, it's the, it's a great community in Dallas, less right now. I used to regularly drive down to White Rock Lake, even though it was, a long drive from Prosper. Because in early in my career, I lived in Dallas, and I worked in Dallas and I even once had an assignment where they sent me down, I worked at Gaston Avenue at a, what's now, the Tom Thumb over near the spillway.

I worked down there in a building, it was called, it was a TI building back then. So I ran at the lake every day. Okay. Okay. That's awesome. I knew. [00:43:00] Lakewood. I knew the le I ran at the le so I still would go down to White Rock, every couple of weeks or something. And without fail I see somebody at White Rock that I know running.

Yeah. Which is pretty cool. No matter what the day of the week is, I see somebody I know. Now for me, I shouldn't give away this secret 'cause it'll change. But I live in Prosper and so I, I do a lot of running out in the PGA Frisco. Have you ever heard of PGA Frisco? It is nice out there. Yeah.

There's hardly anybody running out there right now. That's why it feels like it's my own place to run. There's few people, but there is not too much. But I miss That's correct. Going into White Rock and seeing somebody, no matter what, I would see somebody on Sunday. I know where there's a group of guys that,

Chris Detzel: yeah,

Jim Dietz: running a ti.

When I started running at ti, I, they're still at the same place at Big Thicket, yeah. The Jose and the group's gonna be up there at Norbrook or now Sunset, yeah. You always see somebody out there and that kind of keeps you tied into the community. And I think [00:44:00] that, I've been doing it for 45 years and this is, I can just go down to White Rock Lake tomorrow and see somebody I've known maybe 30, 40 years ago.

But that's pretty cool. Or a young person, and I enjoy seeing the young guys 'cause there's a lot of. Talent in the high school and the collegiate level in Dallas area too. I like seeing them succeed, so that's pretty cool.

Chris Detzel: There's one thing I wanted to bring up. I brought this up in a couple other episodes, but because you hit on it, was when somebody does something, then everybody wants to do it.

This guy, Matt Campbell. He has this group called the Slots or Completely Slots. Slots,

Jim Dietz: yeah. Jennifer and Brittle and those guys. Yeah. All

Chris Detzel: those guys. And one of the goals that he's set for him specifically is to hit under two hours and 30 minutes for the marathon. There's not a lot of people at do it in Dallas.

I'm not saying there's not any. But there's not just a lot, but he wants, and he goes, if I do it, or somebody in that group does it, then everybody else is gonna do it.

Jim Dietz: I think that's true. I think it's true. Yeah. And

Chris Detzel: I just and it just [00:45:00] interesting kind of thought I was like. That, that, you said it, you just said it earlier, and a lot of people say it, and I think that is so key is that somebody's got, once somebody does it in a community of people do it, then Yeah.

We'll have a lot of people in Dallas doing it, that's right. There's a few. Yeah.

Jim Dietz: But there's not a lot there. There is, you have a good group of people in doubt the women wise that are, Olympic trials, there's four of them. Yeah. That I know of or more actually, Jennifer Pope and a woman named Marina.

Chris Detzel: Probably don't know. Her but's this woman has 11 kids or nine kids, and and she's running two 30 sevens, two 30 fours, Yeah. Pretty

Jim Dietz: impressive, right? Yeah, I know. When my daughter was in Fort Worth, she was in the, with the group of women over in Fort Worth.

There's a lot of talent over Fort Worth.

Chris Detzel: Oh, there's a lot. Yeah.

Jim Dietz: Yeah. So there's, yeah. One person sets, sets sets the standard and somebody else. I train with them every day. Why can't I do it? You probably can, yeah. So yeah it's one thing leads to another. And the barriers. What was a four minute mile?

A mile was arbitrary. Four minutes was arbitrarily, [00:46:00] but yeah, they got broken. Now they're running 3 43, so it's ridiculous. They got high school kids that are going there, four, no problem. So I know. It's one thing will lead to another, and that's the beauty of it.

Chris Detzel: You have an Olympic, you have a 15-year-old in the Olympics, basically. Almost so 16. 16. Yeah. But Cooper, I thought it was 15. 16. 16. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim Dietz: He only looks like a 22-year-old. He looks like a man. He's fantastic though.

Chris Detzel: He's got a good future potentially ahead of him. Yep. As long as he can stay healthy.

Jim, this has been really good. Really appreciate your time and I had a lot of fun. Hopefully you did too.

Jim Dietz: I did. I appreciate it, Chris. I appreciate what you're doing, so keep it up and it's a good way to just share and people know each other and understand a little bit of history as well as get motivated.

I think so. It's a good job. You're done.

Chris Detzel: Thank you and I'll keep it up. And thanks everyone for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter at dfwrunning talk.substack.com. Until next time, and Jim, thanks again. Thank you. Bye.