Jera Crandall: Running Through Grief to a 3:05 Marathon Debut

DFW Running Talk: Jera Crandall
===

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

Hi everybody. I'm excited to tell you about our very first sponsor, Rob Goyen and Rise Racing Co. They're putting on the Panther City Ultra at Marion Sampson Park on April 4th. Rob is bringing trail running to Fort Worth with distances from 5K to 50 K through natural trails, Rocky Terrain, real elevation, and it's only capped at 300 runners.

This will sell out. If you're ready for something a little bit different than your usual road race, head over to https://www.riseracingco.com/panther-city-ultra and use code DFW for 10% off your registration. Again, that's https://www.riseracingco.com/panther-city-ultra. And the code is DFW for 10% off. [00:01:00] Thanks so much to Rob and Rise racing ~code.~

For supporting DFW running top.

All right. Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel, and today's special guest is Jera Crandall Jera. How are you? Pretty

Jera Crandall: good. How are you

Chris Detzel: ~doing? ~It's funny because I think I first met you, or at least first saw you at a Pegasus run, although I was doing WRC, I came out to Taco Joint, I started running.

I was like, oh, I wonder who that is. And and then all of a sudden you ran this marathon recently. First one, you're 20 years old Dallas Marathon. Your goal was under a three hours, right?

Yeah. And I was like, this woman's 20 just trying to get under three hours for the first one.

This is crazy. I'm not really talked to a lot of 20 year olds trying to period men or woman trying to hit under three hours. So that's really cool. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Just what'd you do in high school? Whether it was some kind of sport running, how'd you get into that? Let's talk a little bit about you.

Jera Crandall: So in terms of school, sports, I never played sports for the school. [00:02:00] Not in elementary, yeah. Naval or high school. But I started skating. I started figure skating when I was 12 years old.

Chris Detzel: Okay. And you did that for how long?

Jera Crandall: I'm still doing that now.

Chris Detzel: Oh wow. So you must be pretty good. Do you think you're good or?

Jera Crandall: I think I'm mediocre at it. I don't think I'm bad at it, but I don't think I'm spectacular at it either. But there's always like in everything a room to keep learning.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Did you do like any competitions in figure skating or was it just for fun?

Jera Crandall: So the last time I competed was 2023. Okay. I do wanna compete again in skating. I found I couldn't be successful in competition 'cause I just had so much anxiety when I compete in figure skating. But I am determined to get back into that and. Be able to compete and out a performance that I'm actually proud of.

Chris Detzel: I a think figure skating, there's a lot that goes on in that, and it's I'm sure it's stressful, yeah. So I can imagine, that's pretty cool. So how did you, how'd you get into running? What was your. I don't even have you been running for a long time or

Jera Crandall: Kind of, [00:03:00] but also not at the same time. So it's not very well known. The first thing that initially made me start running, 'cause I just have passed it off as I started like running somewhat just 'cause we needed to train endurance for our skating programs, which that is the case. Yeah. But when I started running, just like for long periods of time, it was actually because I've dealt with some.

Pretty major eating disorder struggles since I was 12 and I ran because I just knew that burned a lot of calories and so I ran for, it was a terrible purpose to run, but I would run for that sole purpose.

Chris Detzel: Oh wow. So you were younger and you would run just to try to lose weight and stuff, right? Yeah, or at least, okay.

You probably won't eat. A lot. Either I assume so. Hopefully you've got help for that and all that kinda stuff.

Jera Crandall: I'm definitely bigger than I used to be. I still think about certain things like thinner makes me rotate faster, thinner makes you run faster, but that's not ever the case when it comes [00:04:00] to sports like this.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Now that makes sense. So when you start thinking about, healthy running, as you did you like start, doing 5K, 10 Ks, or, what was your thinking around racing? What was, when did that start? I

Jera Crandall: randomly was my best friend's sister did a 5K at the very end of 2023.

Chris Detzel: Okay. And.

Jera Crandall: I actually went surprisingly well considering I would just basically set a clock for an hour run every morning with no knowledge of how far or how fast, like what I was doing. I just knew I ran for an hour.

Chris Detzel: Hey, that's fun. Don't worry about the clocks. And so did you start feeling competitive, like wanting to just, beat other women, or, do really well in the race?

Any, so

Jera Crandall: I ended up winning the female category of that 5K.

Chris Detzel: Okay. You run? I

Jera Crandall: didn't, I ran a, I ended up running 1928 in that 5K. Which I had. No, that was your first, yeah. I didn't even know what I ran. I like finished and I was like, was that good? Like I had no [00:05:00] concept of mile pace. What? Running a fast mile even meant, I didn't even know the distance of like I knew it was 3.1 miles, but I didn't know how far that was.

I just ran really fast and hoped.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Just one day going out and running a 19 something that's crazy. All right. Did that get you excited or what was going through your mind then?

Jera Crandall: I was definitely intrigued, but I ended up not touching the competitive s side of running again until the very end of 2024.

Okay. When I did a, actually the Turkey trot last year. Where I realized I had, like I had been running, but definitely not in a way that made me any better or maintained fitness. 'cause I realized I'd lost a significant amount of fitness despite still running. And I ran 22 minutes at that Turkey trot.

It nearly like nearly lag at the end. Not really, but it was rough.

Chris Detzel: Which one did you 5K or 10 or the eighter?

Jera Crandall: I did the 5K in 2024. And that was. Actually the race that made me decide that I wanted to be a seriously competitive [00:06:00] distance runner. And at the time, I didn't know what distance I wanted to specialize in, but that's what made me wanna actually be good at the sport.

Chris Detzel: All right. So that's, so now we're getting somewhere, I think, you run a 5K, back in 2023, it sounds and then you're like, ah, that was fun. I guess I won, but whatever. Yeah. Didn't do anything for a little while,

I guess

Jera Crandall: I just kept skating. I just kept everything in my mind on skating fully.

Chris Detzel: Okay, so your mind was still on skating. Got it. That makes a little bit more sense. You're still focused, right? Like you're just, you were just focused on skating.

Yeah.

I'm sure it's hard to let go, and you haven't let go. But you've really started thinking about running what, so after the tricky try, you said you wanna do more of that.

What happened there?

Jera Crandall: So then I signed up for another 5K. That was in December. And I remember just I was like, I have a month of training. Like I was getting into workouts. I started finding pro runner YouTube channels watching these things like how could do faster. I'd do mile repeats around a lake in my neighborhood off of a stopwatch, [00:07:00] measure the distance of a mile and try to do workouts and find ways to run a really run a much faster 5K than I had run a month previously.

Chris Detzel: That's pretty serious. So what happened?

Jera Crandall: I did run faster. I ran that 5K, like I know I ran 6 48 PACE for that 5K. I don't remember what the time is for that, but I know I ran 6 48 pace.

Chris Detzel: Were you happy with it?

Jera Crandall: Definitely. I was much closer to my previous, I was back into the sixes. Were you

Chris Detzel: thinking so I mean you got somewhat serious, in running the 5K.

What was going through your mind after that one? Did you wanna run more or what? You know what? Went on,

Jera Crandall: I definitely did wanna run more and then I started thinking about running 10 K. But there was a stretch where, so I debuted my 10 K in March, but there was a stretch in between there where I was pretty scared of the 10 K distance.

I was like that 5K more sounds big and like I was scared I was going to the 10 K distance.

Chris Detzel: It's always a little scary to do that. Were you running with anybody at the time or was it just you were doing this stuff on your own?

Jera Crandall: I [00:08:00] was always solo.

Chris Detzel: Okay. So you're just looking for different plans on the internet or videos to see what they did?

Jera Crandall: Yeah, I watched Pro Runners like Ali O Strand and her now. I think she got married. Yeah, pretty sure she got married to her husband Spencer. I watched their YouTube channels and I found Philly Bogan, who's a pro marathon runner there. I love to watch. Found a lot of her workouts for grace distances and like tips and stuff.

Chris Detzel: All right. I think that's awesome. You're like going through the, Hey look, I wanna get better, and I guess these people know how to do it since they're pros. So you did this 10 k what'd you do to train for it?

Jera Crandall: So at that point it was actually crazy that I did this. I had no concept.

I really was going with like ignorance is bliss pretty much. I watched, the mileage of like pro marathon runners or whatever, so I was like, oh, I'm just gonna run I'm gonna start with between 55 and 60 miles a week. And then I went to between 60 and 70 and I just said, that sounds good with not any knowledge of what I was actually doing.

And I just [00:09:00] started running that and then stuck with it for, I would do. I would have two days that were workouts and then the rest easy miles, and I left it at that.

Chris Detzel: That's not really a bad approach. It's a lot of miles, for 10 K, when you think of like just in general running, just more miles, even if it is slower pace.

Yeah. Just

to build body up. I think that. It's actually a really good approach. 10 K, 60 miles, I don't know. You could get away easily with 40 to 35 easily still, building. So how'd you do what, 50, 60 miles a week? Leave up fairly decent.

Jera Crandall: So my big goal was at that point I just wanted to run a sub 45 minute 10 K, which at that time sounded like such a feat to do.

But I ran. You never did it.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Jera Crandall: and I ended up running a 42 59.

Chris Detzel: See, look, you're a natural, so I think we're getting somewhere here. So when you ran that 10 k. How were you feeling? Feeling pretty pumped afterwards and then, or, during what was going on?

Jera Crandall: I [00:10:00] was very excited about what I did. Didn't, still didn't really understand what I was doing, but I knew it was working and I obviously wanted to keep going further.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. So let's go back to the running, the 40, 50, 60 milers. Did you know about the shoes, the gear, all these things and, nutrition, and using, I don't know what did you, or didn't you know about all that?

Jera Crandall: I had no concept of using run nutrition. I hadn't yet carry a bottle. It took a while for me to carry a bottle for the first time learning to take gels, like along which gels I was gonna end up using, getting a watch. So you didn't, I didn't get my watch until January. So

Chris Detzel: 2025 this year.

Jera Crandall: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: How would you know?

I would, I'm sure you're seeing people with gels and water bottles and different types of shoes and stuff. How'd you know what shoes to get? You already knew that.

Jera Crandall: I, I actually dig in, I was racing and running in a pair of, I was wearing Asics, but they were at the Asics gel sites.

And I ended up going to [00:11:00] the Asics, like at the Allen outlets and asking like the people there about getting new running shoes and stuff. And I found out I had been, 'cause I was like, why do I have this? Like why do we get all these random like foot pain and whatever. I was wearing shoes running this much.

They were meant for like daily walking for like a two mile run down the block. They weren't meant to be like racing and like running, mileage on.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I remember my first pair of shoes or yeah, basically when I was 37 I started running again and I bought Nike and what I didn't know about.

Running shoes. Anything really, but I, something that I think is important for people to know. If you're just new to running, you probably should wear a half size or a size bigger than what you normally would wear. 'cause your feet swell, as you run those miles. I didn't know that.

And so I put on some Nike and ran with them for six months and they, my feet were hurting like hell. And I was like, oh my God. Like the Nikes are the worst. And come to find out, it wasn't really the Nikes, it was just me, not knowing to wear, a [00:12:00] size bigger. So I always now just wear same size, I've got a small foot, I'll wear eight and a half, but usually I'd wear seven and a half.

It's little things that I think are important as you move on. Like you said, like you're wearing some shoes that were

Yeah.

For walking and not for running, basically.

Jera Crandall: All right. So when did you figure that out? It was, yeah, 'cause it was in between. I raced 10 K in March and then I had another 10 K for May.

So in between then I found out what trainers were right and that second 10 K was when I actually wore my first pair of carving shoes for the first time. I got Nike Alpha Fly. And I was like a kid in a candy store, like just like I'm wearing carbon shoes. Wow. Like I never felt racing shoes. It was like such a crazy experience at the time.

Just like. How much joy I found in racing shoes. And I was like, may I always feel this way about a new pair of racing shoes.

Chris Detzel: Every time I get a new pair of shoes, I get excited about it. And especially your first carbon plates, I [00:13:00] think we're all a little bit, oh my god, we're gonna fly.

And it's true. You do go a little faster. And I think some of it helps with recovery and things like that, especially on racing.

Yeah.

How'd you feel and do you know, with the shoes and a little bit smarter with the next 10 KI

Jera Crandall: ended up running 40 48 at that 10 K. Okay.

Chris Detzel: Wow.

Jera Crandall: So I'd cut think chunk off since March.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Couple minutes a little over. That 40 minutes is ridiculously fast. So I ran a downhill not that long ago. I did PR on the 10 k. I think I got 38 minutes, but it was a straight downhill. Yeah. And so I think I've prd the 5K twice, my recommendation is do it downhill too, at some point.

But maybe not a fool. All right, so you're still not running with anybody then? At that second 10 K. Yeah, at that point

Jera Crandall: I was still solo doing sessions on my own. I really, I only did the same workout like twice a week. I would do three by two miles at 10 K race pace, which is a [00:14:00] brutal session to do.

Having three reps of two miles at 10 k race pace. That's a brutal one. And I did that one twice a week and that was my favorite one to do. Or I would do six by mile

Chris Detzel: the hard stuff.

Jera Crandall: I did still do. So

Chris Detzel: How'd you get in? Involved in running? Because this wasn't all that long ago.

That was this year. Yeah, right now it's December, late December of 2025. So this probably won't come out until mid to late January. What I mean, what gets you into thinking longer, Hey, I wanna do half marathon or a marathon, or whatever.

Jera Crandall: So somewhere in between. Then I did start doing long runs. I went out one day and I was like, I'm gonna try and do, at that point, my longest run was like, it wasn't that long, it was maybe 10 or something.

I remember 12. But I was like, I'm just gonna run 15 tonight and just see if I can, I'm gonna do 15. And I did that and I was, but that was a really cool experience. I ended up running it. Far faster than I thought I could. I ended up running a, I think it was a, because I ended up doing two of these 15 milers.

[00:15:00] I don't remember if it was the first or the second, but I know that I had the night of my life. 'cause I ran a 1 35 half marathon in the 15 mile long run and I was Oh wow. Really? Running a little fast. Yeah. I.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, that sounds pretty awesome. Did you, were you thinking about you got 15 miles and in that 15 miles you did the half, you're running really fast, for, were you just so excited or did you not know? I get,

Jera Crandall: I can go in with the intention of that. I also was practicing a bottle for the first time.

I had this black Nike water bottle that wasn't really, it was like a plastic, like squirt bottle. So it works, but it wasn't really like the grip you'd want if you were gonna race with it. Yeah, but I would put like, just trying anything because I have a lot of stomach problems. So finding fuel is it's a great challenge and to find fuel that works the most consistently.

But I practiced with gay grade first and started increasing the quantity slowly. Stuff like that. I go into using gels.

Chris Detzel: That's awesome. [00:16:00] I mean that you're practicing it and smart. Because if I was running 15 miles, I need water and Gatorade in a gel or too, but I think that's important to practice.

You seem to be getting smarter and smarter as time goes, and both nutrition and. Get in the shoes and everything else, yeah. What made

you decide, so you get, all right, so you're running 15 miles, twice. What happened then?

Jera Crandall: I, the next week I did a 17 miler.

I ended up doing that I remember, and that was pretty cool. I definitely felt the. Depletion feeling of the lack of carbs. 'cause when you think of a bottle of gig or egg, that was like 35 grams of carbs over 17 miles. At least for me, that was not enough. So I was starting to learn this is what depletion feels like.

We'll have to increase this incrementally and definitely need more fuel than that for 17 miler. But

Chris Detzel: sometimes you just learn as you go.

Jera Crandall: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: You know what works for you and what doesn't. It's good that you're practicing it. There's nothing like when you get to a marathon eventually, mile 20 to 22 or whatever, you'll start really feeling some of that if [00:17:00] you don't, properly fuel, and they call it, how it's, they call it the bonk and we hit a wall, or a lot of that is in general, fueling properly.

It's just hard, but, okay. So you ran the 17 miler, you got a little depleted and stuff. What was after that? Not necessarily the runs, when did you meet people to run with?

Jera Crandall: So all of this was pre Pegasus, so at the very end of May, I had another 10 K coming up in June. But the very end of May, I just.

Happened to open my phone. It was a really stressful night. I remember it was a very inconvenient morning the next day to do this, but I happened to open my phone, scroll across like a few posts, and one of them happened to be a Dallas running club group run on a Saturday morning and spontaneously for some reason I was just like, I really need to go to this.

It's really inconvenient tomorrow morning with everything going on, but I just really need to go get this. So I went to my mom and dad and I was like. I just really need to go with this. I know it's hor horrible timing, but is there any way I can get there in the morning? And then I, we ended up going the next morning.

I was a little bit late [00:18:00] but I ran with another woman who ended up being late and we ran together. It was the first time I saw White Rock Lake and then a week later I was like definitely coming back 'cause I got to run with people for the first time, meet other runners. And that was super cool because I've been running solo for a very, a long time at that point.

So I go the next week. With the earlier group and we do a long run together. I joined them for a section of their workout. It was like an 11 mile run, had so much fun doing it, and they learned that I wanted to run a pretty fast marathon, half marathon time. And they told me that there was a group called Train Pegasus that had a lot of fast marathoners.

They'll push you to run fast, you should join them. Showed up. I, yeah. Tuesday workout and never stop showing up after that.

Chris Detzel: That's pretty cool. And now you go all the time, right?

Jera Crandall: Yeah, I'm there. It's very rare that I'm not there.

Chris Detzel: All right. That's awesome. I love that story because what it tells me is that you just went to White Rock, ran with some people or somebody you [00:19:00] just met.

'cause somebody who was late, another woman, and then the next time you knew about this 11 miler that they did or something, you went back and then they said, Hey, you should go to train Pegasus. And you did. That's what the beauty is about, this running community is that, all you have to do is show up a little bit and then people will make recommendations.

You know that, in this case, that's what happened. That's pretty badass. I like it. I looked up the

Jera Crandall: Pegasus website, I saw, I looked through all of the dates, like the long runs, the recovery runs. They had a track workout and then tempo on Thursday or an easy run, and I was like. Cool. Basically, and they had coaching opportunities.

So I decided to go there

Chris Detzel: and you go one day and what happened? I wanna hear about the first few days and first few times that you went. It's got, it's always awkward to go.

Jera Crandall: It was very awkward, especially with, I have a lot of social anxiety, so it was, I love to meet people but at the same time struggle with a lot of social anxiety.

So it was very awkward and I didn't really know what was going on because I never run any of these routes or with [00:20:00] any of these people in office. I had no idea what paces we were gonna run. I just knew it was fast. I had no idea what was going on.

Chris Detzel: Jerry, you should be proud of yourself for, you if you have this social anxiety and, you just show up and you made it happen.

Sometimes you just gotta be bold and make stuff happen. And you did. And I'd be proud of that. Now you have all these friends, and he showed up the other night with. I was there as well, with the trained Pegasus group, having beers and pizza. I wanna go to those things, I'm just a more of a people person.

Cool. You hang out, go and then you start running with some folks, and then what happened? I'm trying to push to this race that you did so well in here in Dallas Marathon. So I was thinking, so

Jera Crandall: I, I trained for that Tay in June and I ran that, this was like two weeks after I joined the group.

So I'd done one long run ever with the group. It was actually an incredible long run for me. It would've been a huge half marathon PR again, if we had gone to 13.1, we would waited 12 that morning. But that was super cool. I was running with the fastest pack at the time and just this [00:21:00] felt really great about that long run.

The next weekend had this 10 k. It was Murphy in June, but the heat was, I remember that 10 K was pretty brutal. I hit the, I was 1.8 miles in and it felt like I was five miles in already and I was like,

Chris Detzel: oh, no,

Jera Crandall: really fighting for a, I didn't think I was gonna PR that day, but it was an out and back course.

And as I was going on the long stretch, like really hurting people like out and backs people cheering from the other side. And all of a sudden I was back running, 30 seconds faster again. 'cause I ended up. 30 seconds too slow for my goal pace that I wanted. And I was like, how on earth am I gonna make this happen?

I'm going 30 seconds too slow. And I'm like, dying out here. I came across the finish line in 40 minutes and eight seconds.

Chris Detzel: Wow, that's a, not a huge pr, but a pretty good pr, that's awesome. In the summertime, so yes. That's pretty awesome. All right, so you did that, and I'm sure you're, you keep PR in all the time.

You haven't had a bad race yet, it sounds like. That was in a fun race, [00:22:00] but you still. Did well I made

Jera Crandall: it happen. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: So I remember sometimes I hear, a bunch of people pr and then they have a bad race and I'm like, you, at some point it's gonna happen, not every race is gonna be a pr, anyways. You did this 10 k, you've been hanging out with Pegasus a little bit, what was after that? Did you wanna do that or anything? Or the next weekend?

Jera Crandall: Oh, the next weekend after that was actually pretty eventful. It's really close to when fas start coaching me. So the next weekend we did a long run and it was gonna be a 14 mile long run.

And once again, I was just gonna run along with the group like I had done two weeks previously. And originally it was gonna be like low sevens, which at that point for my level was pushing it for 14. But I was like, I. Think like I can do this. Like I did, we did like just barely sub seven pace two weeks ago for 12.

So like I can do 14, like I believed I could do it. So we go out, we're four miles in and I am already like they're stopping for water. I already have my hands, like on my knees, four miles in [00:23:00] and I'm like, I don't know why. I'm like, I was really just breaking, but I didn't say anything because. I didn't wanna look.

I always wanna not look weak, don't wanna complain, want it to look like I could run with the strong runners. So I just was like, I'm just gonna carry on. But so we keep going. I eventually get dropped, but there's people running behind me so they think oh, she'll be fine. 'cause people are behind her.

Yeah, they were behind me for quite a few miles. I just remember every like step. Clicking off these like seven, 10 miles, like every step was like the most muscular fatigue I've ever felt. Like this whole run was just brutal. From start to finish. I, there's like a segment that I totally don't remember. I don't remember when I couldn't hear them talking behind me anymore.

I ended up going completely straight off the lake down soak trail, have a whole segment of miles. They're just completely blacked out. Don't remember. I just remember I was. Up straight on a trail. Didn't know how I got there. Had to [00:24:00] stop for a while. Tried to take a gel. Was not taking, I walked for half a mile or a little more. So I was gonna throw up at mile 10, but I was like, I just Herman, I'm gonna run for 14. So kept going straight, ran until I hit 14. I was like, okay, I ran 14, but where am I? I was all the way at the end of Soak Trail, I'd make it out to the road. I had no idea where I was.

Eventually ran out of my bottle. It was hot in June, and then was trying to be like, okay. I didn't have my phone either at the time because I thought I'd be with the group. I wasn't I had no way to call buggy, so I was just out walking the trail, eventually thought I gotta find the lake.

Chris Detzel: Keep going.

Jera Crandall: So I'm just walking for a long time.

I'm not a drink. I ended up being less about, I wanna find people and more I need to find water and then I can worry about finding people. 'cause I have one gel left. That was it. No more drink, no phone, just me and one gel. And I was like, I need to find water. Finally find the sign that says White [00:25:00] Rock Lake after being out there for well over an hour.

When I found that there was a bridge above it, not far after, and Jill was on the bridge and she called my name and I was basically like, thank, like I thought I was gonna be stuck out there forever. I was fighting, like not having a panic attack out there trying to find my way back. I didn't know. I was like, I thought people might find, might look for me, but I didn't know if they would be able to find me out there, but she found me.

Then I walked a little further and bragan ran over to me and took me to a water fountain by the car. Jill Bragan. Aons took me back to Taco joint, got me Greig and water quickly. Th it could be a hospital situation, but I was okay out there, but they did, they found

Chris Detzel: me. That's crazy. Yeah. They count all the pe I've seen them, I've seen Jill count all the people you know and she makes sure everybody's comes back at some point. And so I'm sure that's what she was doing and that's something I learned, just now. I was like, yeah, that's a good point. Wow.

Jera Crandall: Yeah, but and then [00:26:00] you could had something to do,

Chris Detzel: maybe it had something to do with, the hard 10 K you're in just a week before and then going to do 14 miles at the same pace basically.

It was exactly, but a fast pace,

Jera Crandall: yeah. It was also the first week that I may get to that 70 mile mark. That first week, and I think I just wasn't strong enough for that at the time, and just my body tapped out and was like, you're finished.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, of course. But then it a lot,

Jera Crandall: because I think it, it was right after that they were like, she, like I had shown I could be pretty tough, like not in the most ideal way.

Maybe don't do that if it's not taking maybe don't go to that extreme of a level, but I think. They planned to start coaching me in July and they created something pretty cool for me in June, I signed up for the Dallas Marathon and then that's how that plan got started.

Chris Detzel: All right. That's quite the story and I appreciate you telling that.

To me, I would think you'd learned a little bit, hopefully, and I think others kinda learned a little bit about you and at the very least, it brought you all closer [00:27:00] together. And now you had a coach and fawns and things like that, so it worked out for the best, and we all have our stories to where we get lost and stuff, but luckily you were right there at the lake.

At some point you would've found water, I'm sure of it,

but,

But dang the focus. I'm gonna do my 14. I

Jera Crandall: really was like, I still get like that. Like I will just grind through these workouts. Like I'll I've had plenty of blackout moments and workouts that I just don't remember. 'cause I was just, it got so painful in a workout there.

I'm just completely dissociated at that point. Just still going, determined to. Just do it. Like

Chris Detzel: no determination is something, but sometimes you gotta think about it. You don't wanna hurt yourself. Good. Alright, so you start training with Pegasus Moore and you're officially coached by Fawns.

So you know, how did that change, your training and things like that?

Jera Crandall: I finally had. Workouts and mileage that were specifically designed for me. So I wasn't just following without like following anyone's [00:28:00] workout, without knowing what it was that day or how fast we were going. I was finally doing workouts that were meant for my level that I could still chase the fastest group.

'cause I loved, I still loved to chase. I love to extract, just go for some crazy things sometimes. But workouts that were tailored to me to improve me while still letting me cha the way I wanted to. Yeah, still push hard.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Just doing some of the workouts and. Who do you train with mostly now? Like the p I know Pegasus, but is it there's certain people that you run with mostly or?

Jera Crandall: I have quite a few. So on, like easy runs. I have quite a few friends spread out on Wednesdays. Some people from not your average run club that I enjoy running with, but whenever, but primarily Kendall Bragan ran with Jill tons, but primarily them when they're around.

Chris Detzel: So you decided to run the marathon?

I'm sure Peer pressure is always a fun thing. It always happens no matter, [00:29:00] especially with a group, group like Pegasus, or Same thing happened to me years ago, everybody's doing it. Might as well do it. Tell me a little bit about the, your thinking as you started thinking about as Dallas Marathon became closer, what were how was your mindset, how, what, training, that kind of stuff, and what were I know what

Jera Crandall: I first signed up, my first dream was Boston qualification.

And at the time that seemed like an outlandish feat as well. But that was my first dream of running the marathon, was that I wanted to qualify for Boston for sure when I signed up.

Chris Detzel: Did you hear about Boston from others or have you read about it before? You know what? What gets you so excited about it?

Jera Crandall: I had well, and so many people on the team have run it that I heard a lot about it. I, with all the running content that I liked to watch and stuff, I had found things about Boston and qualifying times, and it was a thing that so many people got excited about. So I thought that's cool. That sounded so cool and you had [00:30:00] to run fast, qualify, really appeal to me.

Chris Detzel: That makes sense. You're pretty competitive and you wanna get to that next level on how do you do it, and that's boston. All right. So you get to Dallas Marathon Day of, right? Like you've been training, how'd your training go, by the way? Like all the way from July to December, did it go well or, that kind of stuff.

Jera Crandall: I would say overall it went great in the sense that I. I would, I came to every day, I ran all my miles, which that's not necessarily a dependent like things can happen, but I was there every day, despite all the circumstances, I would still fight for all my workouts, whether it was taking or not. I was still happy to be there, happy to like just always give a hundred percent of anything I'd have.

And it turned into, because in a very early September. I actually ended up losing my dad. Oh, and before that he was one of the people that he loves to watch me [00:31:00] run. He talked about wanting to like how cool it was that his dog was gonna be a marathon runner and run Dallas, like no matter the time, that was all just super.

Cool to him. So it then turned into running was now my way of starting to process what's still very early stage grief. And that Dallas Marathon became something that was fully like for me, but it was also for him because he would be like so proud to see me do that. So I had to do it, and I had to do it well.

Chris Detzel: It's certainly a way that. Like you said, you can process that and push yourself through it, so he's with you through that whole entire, way. When things get hard and things like that. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about, the first of that marathon, how you got through it, what you did, what you were thinking, all of that kind of stuff.

The day of the marathon itself, what was going through your mind?

Jera Crandall: So the day of. Woke up was so excited because it was finally the day that I had been working for six months. The day [00:32:00] never felt real. It was like,

Chris Detzel: like

Jera Crandall: I knew I was gonna run 26.2 miles. I knew I had signed up. The thought of it felt surreal.

The thought of attempting sub three was like surreal. I knew I was gonna do it, but at the same time it was like, this can't possibly be happening now. It was just a dream in my head for so long. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: And so you get to the starting line, you're there. What happens? Walk me through the plan, like you walked me through it last time, whenever we were running together, let's think about that.

That piece of it.

Jera Crandall: Yeah. You had the plan. What did

Chris Detzel: that look like?

Jera Crandall: So the night before Fons had texted me and asked how I was feeling about it, and I said I was definitely so excited to run this, but also very nervous, understandably. And then he gave me the plan. He gave me paces to run, but also just like the places and streets where he wanted me to.

Be able to relax where I should pick it up, where I should run smart to get over the rolling [00:33:00] hills without burning out the tank early. Just I then took a sharpie, wrote down two separate plans for all my mile splits of what the goals were, knowing that I could vary a little bit if I needed to, but these are, this is where you stay relaxed.

These are the paces you do from like miles eight to whatever one through. All my splits were written from uc. I

Chris Detzel: remember. So I remember you telling me that, and you were telling me my first mile is gonna be about a seven 15 and your goal from my understanding was under three hours. And I thought, that's pretty slow.

He had given me first mile.

Jera Crandall: Yeah. He had given me, he said, through the first three miles run, seven 15 to seven 20. And I ended up running actually a little more conservative than that because I should have started splitting my watch. But that's. That's not really that big of a deal. I thought it sounded conservative too, and I was like, really?

I'll have a shot. He's yeah, you'll have a shot to do it. You start there running those [00:34:00] three miles, 7 15, 7 20, get a feel for it. Super chill effort. It's gonna feel like crazy, but just relax. It will feel really good. Get to the late, the miles in between. The first 5K in the lake would be like high six, fifties, still relax, get over the rollers, don't burn out the tank going up.

He said, slow down between 15 to even 30 seconds going uphill so that you don't burn the engine 'cause it's not worth it. There's no game from that. Then around the lake, the aim was to just cruise through six 40 fives. I slowed down because the headwind it was the headwind, was also giving some resistance.

And again, I thought, I can't burn it out fighting this headwind when I have 14 miles to go. I can't burn it out now over some headwind. That's really not worth it. Dialed back the effort a little bit, kept it controlled, but fast and just let myself cruise calmly through the obstacles that were out there.

Chris Detzel: Okay. So when did you just let it [00:35:00] go? Or, did you just cruise in? What did that look like? All the way from past the lake onto the finish.

Jera Crandall: So clearing the lake I remember also thinking out on the lake, like I had seen somebody else mention this somewhere, but. You're only gonna live this one time.

You're only gonna be out here experiencing this for at the like minimum of three hours of your life. And when you think about it, that's not very long at all. So really soak all this in. So I was thinking like, look at the lake. You see it all the time, but look at the lake, it's raised, stay look at these trees, feel the wind, enjoy it because you're only gonna experience this once and it's not for very much time.

Yeah. So I really just soaked in the experience out there. Leaving the lake was, I knew that Big Hill was coming between miles 18 and 21 was Ross Street where I remember he told me to relax, to stay relaxed until I get to Ross Street and then I can send it. So I find this hill and I now saw why, and I was really glad I saved the tank and ran smart because that was definitely a climb.

And especially [00:36:00] if you had burned out, you might not make it up that hill. I make it out. I see the mile, like mile 20 and they're mile 21. And I realized like I actually had tears well up in my eyes, like tears of joy. 'cause I was doing it. I had five miles to go and I still felt good, which I was astonished, like I still felt good 22 miles in.

I was not expecting that. I really engaged. Yeah. With the crowds still. I was just so excited to be out there, which I think my mask any pain I was feeling, 'cause I was just so happy to be out there. I realized like I was doing it, like I was doing something that felt completely not real and it was now what I was living in real time.

Chris Detzel: That's pretty amazing love. I love that story so far. You're 22 miles in 23, you know what's going on. Then what happens at the end?

Jera Crandall: I start to put in a final, I start to put in a surge. I end up at 6 35 pace momentarily, 6 25 with the cheers. And then I dialed it back a little bit 'cause I'm like, you still have five miles, be a [00:37:00] little weary.

There's five miles. But you're at the point now where you can let go and just send it. 'cause this is where you go fast. Yeah. So tried to cruise, guess close to the middle sixes as I possibly could. I get to three and a half left or the 5K because I'm gonna start to feel like my quads might be giving.

But aerobically, I still had it. I still felt like I could mostly control my breath and stuff. So I was like, okay, I just need my quads to make it the last 5K. Like I know my legs are tired, I know it hurts, but like this is where you fight hard. And I knew that so many people I loved were watching me.

They trained with me. They were so proud of me and I was like. I was so proud of me too. I'm like, this is where you fight. It's only 5K in the grand scheme of. Workouts I've fought through 5K is so short. I knew I could fight for 5K,

Chris Detzel: 20 minutes or less, yeah. And you fought?

Jera Crandall: Yeah, I looked at my time when I was at the 5K.

I had I was at like 2 45 at that point and I was like, I'm not quite gonna, I was like, I'm not gonna break three, which I knew at the half [00:38:00] split. 'cause I came through the half and. 1 32 59. That would've been a very aggressive, negative split. So I knew I wasn't gonna break three that day, but I knew that either going sub 3 0 5 or 3 0 5 something I knew that was within reach.

And so that was the beagle. And so that's where I was really fogging for now, was this 3 0 5.

Chris Detzel: Okay. Remember having

Jera Crandall: one mile to go and that felt like the longest mile of my life.

Chris Detzel: Uhhuh, it always does.

Jera Crandall: I'm like, you have one mile to go. But especially now, everyone's probably screaming at that tracker fight for one more mile.

And I'm telling this to myself there's one mile, fight hard for 1.2 more and then you've made it.

Chris Detzel: You're done.

Jera Crandall: And so I dig, I kept grinding for that last mile, crossed the finish line, stopped my watch and had a moment where my vision slightly spun, but I was like, whoa. And then walked forward to get my mega, and the one of the race assistants was like, you all right?

And I was like, I think so. And then [00:39:00] I was like, actually, no. And then that's when Fons came over. They were like, we need a wheelchair. Because I literally, I couldn't, I had literally empty the whole tank. I was completely out.

Chris Detzel: Wow, I'm glad font's there. Wow, what a great story. You hit a 3 0 5.

What? What was your time?

Jera Crandall: 3 0 5 39.

Chris Detzel: So Jera Crandall at 20 years old, hits at one three. Oh fives like 29 or whatever. Wow. And I

Jera Crandall: remember, I remember being in the wheelchair and Jill was there too. And I didn't even realize this, but I just hear her go. She was fifth in the women's open division. That's awesome.

And I was just like, really? I had no idea. Think about that. Done. I had no idea that I had what I had placed in the divisions. I just knew that, like I had, I made it to Boston and I made my Beagle. It was close to sub three. Not quite there, but I'm still very well within that range that I'm close.

Chris Detzel: It's rare that one that people make.

The Boston [00:40:00] Marathon, the first time they run a marathon, it's rare. That's number one. What? What? You shattered it because I think your time is like at 3 25 or something. I dunno. Three 20, whatever. It's. You killed them. But more importantly I, I mean you, you obviously put the work in the time, the effort, you had a a crisis that happened with your dad passing away, that, trust me, I understand my parents, my mom passed away when I was 19 and, things like that.

So it's not an easy feat, the po if there's a positive to that, it is that. You promised your dad you were gonna go run this marathon and he would've been very proud of you. He was already proud of you. You, you have that and you accomplished it and you actually crushed it.

You didn't just accomplish, something great. You did something great, and, I think the sky's the limit. I wanna say it's one thing. 'cause I think it was just fun. I was running. I'm sitting there and I'm running at a, about a seven 15 pace. My goal was one 30, but I didn't even get close to that day.

But the point was the first mile was seven 15 and then I saw you and I was like, [00:41:00] she's doing exactly what Juan said. I was like, good for her for not going out, too fast. And, which I thought, it's rare to, for anybody on their very first race like that, and especially a 20-year-old to go out and be smart.

And you're as smart as look, I'm sure FS had a big part of that. Yeah. To push you. But the more important thing is that you listen to that good coaching, not all of us do that, it's not easy 'cause you wanna get out there 'cause you're feeling good and stuff like that.

So look, a very well run race, like very well coached and congratulations. I think that's amazing.

Jera Crandall: Thank you.

Chris Detzel: What else? I would say

Jera Crandall: the light, some of the biggest racing keys, like I always heard, like you can end your race up to a week before you even go out there and race. So where I would say, again, anyone going out to race is like focus on everything that you can control and just keep that and make sure that you don't leave any controllable variables out around the table.

You obviously can't control the weather. So now I only look at the weather to [00:42:00] dress accordingly and get fuel accordingly, but I don't let myself worry about that 'cause I can't control the weather. So I don't really care the things like doing the three day carb load, knowing the equation of how many grams of carbs to eat based on my body weight.

I had that equation. Hit that may myself hit that number every day for three days. I knew the carb load was to cure. I'm not leaving any time on the table being under fueled. I hydrated well, took in extra electrolytes. Another checkbox. I'm not leaving any dehydration out on the table to slow me down. I had my carbs that I had practiced with my fuel, my gels.

My gels are my pockets, my bottle with. Carb and gay Reagan. It so new. I had all my nutrition secured. No time left on the table for a lack of nutrition. I had my race kit, everything I needed. My, times written, what I was gonna follow, my trust and my coach, even if I was scared of the plan he gave me, even if it sounded aggressive, like just trusting him 'cause he wouldn't give me something that I [00:43:00] couldn't do.

Chris Detzel: That's some great tips. I wasn't expecting that.

Jera Crandall: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: That's pretty awesome. I love that. I was gonna ask you if I, if there's anything that we missed, I still can ask that, but I feel like you just touched it. Anything I should have covered that I didn't or that we should have?

Jera Crandall: My first half marathon was October Fest, which was, it was a pretty interesting experience for the half.

But but basically, wow, so interesting. Why was it interesting?

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Jera Crandall: I ended up having, so I was, my goal was to break 1 25 at that half, which I didn't come far from it again. I ran 1 26 56, but, I was cruising through the middle again. I had a pace plan that Fons had given me. I was following it.

I was cruising through the middle section. I get to the halfway mark and I'm like, okay. It's starting to feel like myth, but I'm like, I'm through the half. Like he wasn't feeling that bad. I was starting to pick it up with four and a half miles left. I was having, I had the most excruciating stomach pain of my life for the whole last four and [00:44:00] a half miles.

And I was like, how am I gonna make it? Four and a half felt very long in that state. I had one gel. I haven't opened my gel yet, so I opened it. I was like, I'm gonna take anything at this point to try and see if I can do this. Yeah. I only got down like a quarter of it and it's now a joke because I only could get down like a quarter.

And but then I was just carrying it the rest of the way. And I didn't really care at that point because I was just focused on somehow making it and maintaining some kind of a pace, at least at Marathon effort at that point. Yeah. Wow. So I finished kind up finishing the race with my gel all the way down my legs.

It was like stuck to my, it was just everywhere. And I finished and I'm like, I need help. Like it was everywhere.

Chris Detzel: Wow. You were a mess that day. I was,

Jera Crandall: but I definitely had some, again, that determination and grit to just get through something where I was like, yeah, I felt like I went through the last mile, barely breathing.

'cause every breath I took at that point I felt like I was being like, stabbed again. But I [00:45:00] got through it, I was determined. I'm like, I'm not stopping. I'm gonna keep running just to keep running.

Chris Detzel: You do know Jera that it is. Okay. To stop if you wanted. Yeah, I understand kind of the determination and things like that, if your stomach's hurting that bad, it's just one race.

You're 20, you've got tons and tons of potential races later. Yeah. Stop and walk for a minute. It's okay.

Jera Crandall: Yeah, and I would obviously say that especially in training, if that happens yeah. Depending on what's happening in a race. But I guess that describes me. Like I'm just, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna full send it.

Whatever comes my way, I'm just gonna take it and do the best I can with whatever I'm given.

Chris Detzel: Obviously you did that during just the practice run. 17 or 14 miles and Oh yeah, you just had to get that 14 thing right. I'm seeing some signs here, and look, don't get me wrong, I love the grit focus.

And I think that part of it is that's what it takes to be, really good. It's just, but you also have to think that at the moment, you're not a, you're not doing this for a living. You're doing it for fun [00:46:00] and you know you're trying to get better. And I think the potential is.

Who knows what the potential is for you if you keep doing it and keep being smart like you are, or, I love that you're very smart about nutrition, about training, about the grit, about, starting off the marathon at exactly what your coach was saying, you gotta coach before your first marathon.

Nobody does that hardly, yeah. And you did. And wow. The, you made a lot of really smart decisions and you don't see that much. Anyone for that matter, and your age, a 20-year-old just goes out there and does shit, and I live like I dunno how you didn't know a lot, at first.

But it didn't take you long to figure out, hey, eventually you gotta coach and. Training plans and you've gotta eat right. You've gotta drink, you've gotta do all these things. You knew exactly. You were pretty calculated, in, in your marathon. And I do think if you didn't listen to the Brent Whittle, did you listen to the Brent Whittle podcast?

Jera Crandall: I've to part of it so far.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, that guy is very meticulous in [00:47:00] all the things he does, and so I, I think he would appreciate how he is very focused in on everything, whether, how he runs the things that he takes. It sounds like you have some of that in you. And that to me can lead to greatness.

Just kill and park. That's just me. And it'd be fun to watch, in the future and see what you do. And, if you wanna continue what's next for you? That's one thing as of

Jera Crandall: now. Talked to Fas about it. Last Wednesday actually, we were at Starbucks 'cause I wasn't running still.

Tomorrow's my first day back, which I'm very excited for. Smart. But so he actually said instead of doing a spring marathon this year, he wants me to wait to race the full again all the way until the 2027 Houston Marathon. And in this whole year's time just built. Raw strength, let my musculature develop more for a whole nother year and develop speed from the 5K to half marathon distance to hopefully go to Houston in 2027 and run [00:48:00] something super fast on a much flagger course and just see what I can do at that point.

I'll be 21 then,

Chris Detzel: so three months out and you'll have Boston. Yeah.

Jera Crandall: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, but I love that. Houston's a great course. I'm going there for the half this year, but this next year, 2026. I've done it several times. The half, but I don't, she might know I don't do fools anymore, so my wife does all those and she'll be in Boston as well.

But yeah, I like that. And it's a really great approach. You can just kick ass in the half marathon, in the five Ks. It will get you really super fast. And said, do you do any weight training or anything like that? Or or no?

Jera Crandall: Yeah, so when I, so I came from also wanting to do competitive power lifting for a point in time.

I was like, wow. Between 17 and 19 was probably that the biggest time where I was lifting really heavy. I still can lift. We don't obviously train lifting that heavy, but I still do lift heavy and I do a lot more runner specific stuff now, but I think that strength really carries over to take on [00:49:00] the volume and the intensity that I try to train.

There's progression. I'm so young still. I have so much time. My body's still developing. Yeah. As all I get stronger. I think a lot of that helped me be much more resistant to a lot of the potential injuries that could have come from if I hadn't done that much weight training. That could come from just spontaneously saying, I wanna run between 60 and 70 miles.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah.

Jera Crandall: So that protect me from that. But I still, I love lifting heavy. My back squa is still my favorite lift and my best lift out of all of them. But I still love strength training. I love the gym still.

Chris Detzel: That's, perfect.

Jera Crandall: Now,

Chris Detzel: now you just build, yeah. I like, I love that idea of, for the next year you just build, all the way, it seems like a long time, but it'll go just like that and you'll have a lot of fun in the haves and five Ks and things like that,

Jera Crandall: yeah, and I love the marathon.

It's my favorite thing. I was determined I was gonna love it. The long run is my favorite run of the week, my favorite workout. I was determined to love the marathon and I definitely [00:50:00] do love the marathon.

Chris Detzel: Great. That's great. Jera, this has been really great. I really appreciate you telling our, telling your story.

It's fun. You're young, a lot of potential. You work hard, you're focused, you do all the right things, and that's gonna get you far, I think, potential's there, you've already shattered. You know your first marathon, so congratulations. Thank you everyone for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk.

I'm Chris Tetzel. Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter at DFW running talk com. Jera, thanks so much for coming on.

Jera Crandall: Thank you so much for having me. Of course.