Marathon Mindset with Lea Ivy: Lessons from Twelve Bostons and Beyond

DFW Running Talk: Lea Ivy
===

Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] Alright, welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel, and today we have special guest and we'll just call her. So special that she's my wife, Lea Ivy. Lea, how are you?

Lea Ivy: I'm well, how are you Chris?

Chris Detzel: I'm doing well. I appreciate you coming on. Sure. So what we'll talk about today is a little bit about your journey, which is very intriguing to me and I think others will really enjoy it.

But you are about to run Boston for the 12th time in a row. You've run Chicago Marathon three times. You've run New York once you've worked Berlin Land once, and you're about to do London, and we'll go into all of that here in a minute. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. So tell me a little bit about you, Lea and your journey in running, how you got into it.

Lea Ivy: I think the thing that's made me most special about my running journey is that I don't have any special running talent. I'm just willing to work harder and for longer periods of time than most people. And that paid off. I did not run in college. I didn't even run in high school. More than I [00:01:00] think.

I ran track a couple years in high school, maybe freshman, sophomore year, but most of my running started in middle school. And I grew up in a very small, rural east Texas town. We didn't have a cross country team. I ran, I think the 800 and the 1200 distances that I really don't have any business running, but I surely couldn't.

Maybe one of the best. Parts about going to a very small rural school is that they're like, we need an 800 runner, and guess what? You're it. So that kind of started my running. I think the longest that we ever ran was two miles and that was considered. Just really long, like who would run eight labs around the track.

So that was nothing that I ever really conceived of. But when I went to college is probably when I started actually running as we know it today. And even then, that was back in the early nineties, I was probably wearing a pair of, sneakers from Walmart. Honestly, because, that's just where I bought my shoes at that period of time I didn't have any money and I was just running for stress relief because I wasn't really demanding [00:02:00] college major and never kept track of mileage.

I would just go out and run for an hour. I don't know, maybe two at the most, but I could see even then that it really paid off in terms of the way it transformed my body and just made me feel stronger and really got rid of the stress. And then when I graduated and came to work here in Dallas, I was working graveyard shifts really didn't hold on.

Did you ever.

Chris Detzel: Did you ever do any races or anything like that? No. In college,

Lea Ivy: no. I take that back when I was in my nursing program, there were a couple of men in the program. I call them men because I was like 19, and at that time they were in their late thirties, early forties. They were changing careers in the nursing to nursing, and a couple of those men had run marathons before and they were talking about how they were out running and training.

And so I told them I, I run some. But I would never leave the campus because, back then it was just not really safe. And, that would've been, too long for me. So they invited me to come on a couple of those runs with them. I [00:03:00] think maybe the most, we would've run eight to 10 miles.

I really honestly don't know. I never kept up with it. Never thought to even ask how far we were running. But there was a half marathon. That they held in Nacodoches at the time. Again, I didn't know anything about that and I was like a half marathon. There's no way I can run 13 miles. Like I just don't think that's possible.

But they're like, oh yeah, you can with what you're running. I did run that race. I can't tell you what my time was. I don't even remember the name of the race. I almost died. I remember thinking, this is so far. Oh my God. I know. I didn't take anything. There were no, I don't even think there were gel products or anything back then.

I certainly didn't have anything. I didn't carry any water with me. There might have been a water stop or two, who knows, but I ran it and I finished it and I survived. And I did think at that point, maybe one day I'll run a marathon. I don't know, maybe one day. And so when Idea was planted.

The idea was planted.

Yeah, college, you run the half marathon. Yeah. And that was just a one-off thing. It certainly didn't spur me on to do it anything more at that point. It just, I thought [00:04:00] maybe one day I can do a marathon. So when I moved to Dallas, I was working graveyard shifts and I certainly wasn't even running as much as I did in college because I was starting my new life as an adult and.

I was going to the gym and things like that. Probably running just recreational, maybe three or four miles here and there, no type of structure training program. And really didn't do any major running until, I guess it was probably, it was May of 2006. Maternal grandfather died and he had been a miler and he went to college actually on a track scholarship.

He was a big influence in my life as a young person and had always encouraged me to run and things like that, but I didn't get any of his speed. But I thought, this is my year that I'm gonna, I'm gonna run the marathon. I'm gonna run the White Rock Marathon. At that time, it was Dallas White Rock Marathon, and I went to what was at that time, run on Mockingbird, and.

Signed up for their training program and ran the White Rock Marathon in December, 2006. [00:05:00] That was my first marathon. Wow. And I've been marathoning ever since. So this is 19 years of marathoning, give or take. Maybe a couple years actually probably one and a half years when I just took some time away because I just, had not really injured myself, but it just took the wind outta my sails and I just wasn't really, my head wasn't right to be where I needed to be to train properly.

So

Chris Detzel: first marathon though did you feel like that first, I mean you, you weren't going to run on. Did you feel like you were properly trained? Did you do well? Absolutely.

Lea Ivy: No, they had a great program back then, and I'm assuming they still, I know that run-on doesn't exist in the same way now, but they did.

They had a really good program. I even at that time, I didn't own a Garmin or, the very basic Garmins were there at that point. Like our PACE leaders, I remember they had these mysterious watches called Garmins, and I was like, I don't know why I would ever need something like that. There's no reason why I would need that. I just showed up. And I, whatever they said to run, that's what I ran with. I didn't even have a watch, like maybe I had a time mix or something like that was like a [00:06:00] stopwatch type thing. But it never occurred to me to, I never tracked my miles, I didn't track my pace or whatever.

When we did our speed work, I would just try to stay up with Pace Leader. So at that point I was in like the four hour marathon group and it worked 'cause I ran 4 0 5, and yeah, I didn't make it under four hours, but I was just, happy to just complete it. I couldn't believe that I ran 26.2 miles, but and yeah, at the end I thought I was going to die, but I didn't.

And then so the seed was really planted then that, yeah, I can probably do this faster if if I just keep training. And in 2007, I ended up moving to Houston and I did go sub three, like the next year in Houston. I got in with the training group down there. You sub

Chris Detzel: four,

Lea Ivy: I'm sorry, SEP four. Yes.

Definitely not sub three, but I went sub four and yeah, thought, okay, I'm on the trajectory. I'm doing well now. And at that point I had learned about Boston, but I still was like, I'll never be fast enough to do Boston. That's just, I [00:07:00] couldn't conceive of that. It's like that just is, seems like it's way outta my.

Way outta my wheelhouse. So I wasn't even, didn't even have that as my sights. I was just trying to chip away at okay every marathon maybe I can get faster. But didn't work that way. In fact, it went the other way. I started getting slower and just not having very good races.

And, looking back on it, it was just a matter of. I was not training properly. I was not doing all the structured speed work that I should be doing. I was not fueling myself properly, and that meant like during the runs, but then also just my nutrition on a day-to-day basis. Not that my diet was terrible, I.

But I just wasn't doing the work that I needed to be doing. And I actually, I think that was the time that I started to, I developed like some aches and pains in my right hip and lower back. And I ended up going to PT and I didn't have to stop running for three weeks, only about three or four weeks.

And then I realized, okay now I have the tools that I need to. To do this properly. So a lot of it was just some strengthening. And I had been in the [00:08:00] gym. I've always been somebody who's enjoyed the gym and who likes to lift weights, which is not common among runners. Most runners just like to go to the gym because they have to.

But I really like being in the gym. And so I was very compliant with my exercise program and I got right back to running pretty quickly. And then it was, I think probably January of 12. There was I got in with a small group of people down there that were training. I wanna compare 'em to like the, what the co-op is here the White Rock Running Co-op.

Although, yeah, this was only about 30 or 40 people at the time. It's not near as big as what it is here, but they were just a small group of individuals who would meet, two or three times a week at different locations in Houston where I was living. And then, we would roughly follow a training schedule.

People were training for all different things. Be running with somebody, but maybe not. It just depended on whoever showed up. But we would put fluids out for each other and things like that. But the thing about this group that was really special was that everybody was really focused on performance.

And, there were people there who [00:09:00] were, really fast, who were sub three marathoners. There were people who were. Trying to go sub four 30. So it was a broad range of people. There were people who were even, training for ultra marathons, which at the time I was like, nuts.

I don't know why anybody would do that, but

Chris Detzel: when you've done a hundred miler, we won't necessarily talk about that, but you've dipped your toes into Yeah. Ultra running several times yeah.

Lea Ivy: But but they were all really focused on performance, whatever performance meant to them. And it was a form of positive peer pressure.

And there was a woman in the group who said, Hey, I'm gonna run Chicago this year. Do you wanna go run Chicago with me? Let's enter the lottery. And I was just like, why would anybody go outta state to run a marathon? We got one right here. Why, so logical. No, I was just, I still, at that time, I still was just not really processing a lot of what happened outside of my small little.

Little world, but I said, sure, okay I'll enter the lottery with you and I a chance. And we both got in. So I was like, okay, alright, I have all gear to [00:10:00] to train for this marathon that's gonna be in October. And we know what the summers are like here in Dallas. Summers in Houston.

It's, that's where the magic happens, is that if you can survive those summer months and doing all your long runs and then you're gonna set yourself up. If you end up with a nice. Nice fall weather day, which is what we had in October of 2012. I didn't go up there with any kind of goal other than to try to beat my last, my fastest time, which I think at that time was like 3 50, 3 51 or something like that.

And I ended up running three 40 in change, I think, which was like a huge breakthrough for me because at that time I was 38. In the fall of 2012. Oh wow. I was thinking you're

Chris Detzel: 38 now. Wow.

Lea Ivy: Yeah, but I didn't even realize it at the time. Of course, I knew by then what it took to get into Boston, but I was like, yeah, I didn't qualify for Boston.

I don't even remember I, because I think it was right at three 40, but I was over [00:11:00] three 40. But then I had a friend mention to me, oh no, you did qualify for Boston. You qualified for Boston 2014 because you're gonna be 40. On race day in 2014, do you Their qualifying time was 3 45. I had a three 40 in change, so that wouldn't necessarily get me in today.

Now that the times are, the buffer times are, yeah. So much strict. More strict. It actually might 'cause it's five minutes. Yeah, we've had a couple of times where it was, what, like five minutes, six, seven, something like that. It wasn't even then, although it was competitive, it wasn't near as competitive as it is.

Now the buffer. Yes, it's changed a lot, but so that just really lit my fire. Then I came back to Houston and then I ran Houston in 2013 and I shaved another five minutes off. So then I was like, alright, now it became a quest to get as fast as I could. And then when I moved back to Dallas in 2013, I joined the Dallas Running Club, which is where we met.

We did tell that story real [00:12:00] quick from your point of view, how we met. We met when I came back to check on you when you were lagging on the long run and I thought, that guy doesn't look too good back there. Maybe we should go check on him.

Chris Detzel: So the way I saw it was I was running my first time to ever run nine miles at Dallas Running Club.

It's the start of the season. During marathon training. I don't know why I was thinking I was gonna run a marathon. I did. But anyways, so probably the last mile, two miles, I was really just struggling big time and I was like let's just figure out how to get home later. We're back to the thing and then you turned around and you met me there, it's history from there.

It's not really history from there. It was

Lea Ivy: about a year later before we started dating but yeah. Yeah. But I trained with DRC for a couple seasons and brought my time down. Another, about another five minutes. I was like, I broke the three 30 barrier and then it was in 2016, so my first Boston was in 2014, had a disastrous race.

It was really tough for me. Ended up, I was in the med tent, but I was [00:13:00] like, I'm gonna finish this no matter what because I want that medal, I was like, if you quit, you're not gonna get that medal and you may never come back here again. And so I finished it and then at that point I was like, okay I've got to change some things.

One of them being my fueling situation because again, I was still hardly fueling. During races. I was taking as little as I possibly could in terms of fluids,

Chris Detzel: and that's the

Lea Ivy: right thing for a marathon, is it? And if not, if you wanna get faster and you wanna race, you can run a marathon on fumes if you want.

It's not very pleasant. But you can't race one well without, without fuel on board. So I went to see a sports dietician Eve with neutral works, which I know a lot of people have worked with. And she really helped me. Learn about, proper fueling and my nutrition in general. I wanted to change my body composition.

And that was another,

Chris Detzel: I remember that by the way.

Lea Ivy: Yeah, it was a really eyeopening because, you think you're doing things correctly or you think you're not eating as much as [00:14:00] you are and you're just, you need to learn to put the proper foods together. And I guess it's just that, nutrition is very individual and that's why I recommend to everybody that they see a licensed, registered sports dietician for our assistance.

If they have any problems with. Their weight management or racing, fueling, it's just been invaluable. And I've gone back to see her and I've seen Maria there over the years, and I would recommend ID of their practitioners because they're just excellent and they're experts, by the way, they're not

Chris Detzel: sponsoring this

Lea Ivy: no, but that's, I know that's one piece that a lot of people struggle with or that they don't, yeah. It's not that they know it's important, but. They'll go and spend a lot of money on shoes or things like that. But then you don't, you're not spending money on solid nutrition advice or coming up with a solid plan for Yeah.

How to get through a race and Yeah. What to do and, and it's just, it's been a big factor for me. I still struggle with fueling during races and that's just, that's on me. I'm someone who does not like to eat or drink when I [00:15:00] run, period. I just don't like it. I've always struggled with it. Yeah.

So I should do, it shouldn't be running long distances if I don't wanna, if I don't wanna eat or drink during runs, but, it's critical. You have to do it. So yeah. So here we are now 2016, so I guess it was 2016. And so that happened and I said, I'm getting a little burnout. I'm tired of having to, I'm of watching the clock all the time at this point.

Of course, I had the Garmin and, I was hyper-focused on pace and I was like I'm really tired of this. I ran, I ran a 50 mile, I think I ran a 50, my 50 miler. I ran a 50 miler in 2016, I think it was, or maybe it was 2017. I don't know. It was 2016

Chris Detzel: and I

Lea Ivy: trained myself.

Chris Detzel: Let's back up because I want people to know this is that before we started truly dating, we went on a trip and I got you into trail running.

That is true.

I guess that 18 miler or 30 K or something. It was like 30

Lea Ivy: 30 k.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Some bullshit. And you finished it and I did not. So [00:16:00] anyways, that's where you got into trail running and then it eventually ended up that, hey, you wanted to kinda think about ultra running and then you said, did that 50 miles. Yeah, that's true.

Lea Ivy: And so I trained and ran the Rocky 50. 50 miler. And that wasn't, I think that was in 2016, so February, 2016. And it was at that point that I thought, okay, now I've done a 50 miler. Now the next thing I need to do is I need to do this a hundred miler. Because at that point we had been introduced to the trail running community and all these people in there we're doing a hundred milers.

It's like the gateway drug. You run a 5K, you run a 10 k you run a half, you run a marathon, or you go from couch to marathon, whatever, it's just, by the way, I never got on that drug. Yeah. But I thought I'm gonna need a coach for this. Because, I know how to train for a marathon.

I know the mileage that it takes for that. I know I shouldn't be doing four times that to run a hundred miler. There's no way I won't survive that. And I'm too type A I knew I was at risk of over training so I hired a coach and I went with Liza Howard with Sharman Ultra.

I wanted somebody who. Was [00:17:00] familiar with both running road racing and a trail racing because I obviously do both. I do a lot more road running now and I've always done a lot more road running than trail. Yeah. So I chose her for that reason. And also just because I looked at her resume and it was very impressive and she, we hit it off when we had our coaching call and she understood my goals.

She was a woman close to my age. She had done a lot of, IM impressive things and I will credit her. I was coached by her until, recently for eight years, and, I will credit her with helping me to stay healthy and for reaching my prs. Because she individualized my program and she really revolutionized the way that I approached my training.

At that point, I started training on my own, which is what I've primarily done for the last eight years, and there's been a lot of sacrifice in that. And there's some things in that I didn't like. The fact that I was training a lot on my own. But when you're following an individualized plan, it's really hard to run with other people if there's not somebody that's running like [00:18:00] your exact, in, really close to what you're, your training

Chris Detzel: pro program,

Lea Ivy: basically.

Yeah. Like I have a, an individualized plan. That's the whole point of having. A coach. But she, the thing, I think that one of the things she taught me that was just most important and that, I encourage everybody to do now is I don't train by pace anymore. I train by effort. And when she first introduced me to that, I was, not resistant.

I was willing to try it, but I was just like, I don't know what you mean. You want me to run for, 20 minutes at Marathon pace effort. What pace do you want me to run? I don't know what pace to run. And she was like, I don't want you. To run a certain pace. I want you to run what you feel.

You you should be able to your body, you should feel in your body what a 5K effort is, what a 10 K effort is, what a half marathon effort is. You should be able to change those gears. And even now, after working as long as I, I have, that's difficult for me to manage. But it's a constant challenge.

But it also helped me. Get my eyes off the watch. Stop watching the watch. Everybody wants to watch the [00:19:00] watch. You pace a lot of races or you pace people in groups and everybody's concerned about, we're going 10 minutes. 10 seconds too fast. We're going 10 seconds too slow. Oh. The only person that needs to worry about that is the person pacing, and everybody else just, I was

Chris Detzel: worried about it. Today at A DRC run, we're doing 12 miles and the guy was doing like eight 15. So I'm like, Hey man, we're supposed to run eight 30. Why aren't we running eight 15? Anyways,

Lea Ivy: see. I could tell you that with my body, because I do know when I'm running I'm like, okay, I know this is not like how I feel when I'm supposed to be running an easy pace if Yeah.

I can tell you that because I just, I know how I feel now with that. But that was really invaluable, that in trail running taught me to stop focusing so much on pace and focus on effort. That those two things were really big for me. They helped me really rethink the way that I was training.

And it helped me not to overtrain too, right? Because it just, a lot depends on if you're gonna go out and do speed work, that's great, but you can't always hit certain paces in your speed work that, and that could be totally unrelated to your conditioning level. It's [00:20:00] impossible to hit like your ideal marathon pace when it's, 85 degrees outside and 70% humidity.

Like it's just a fool's errand to try, but you can hit the effort. You can hit the effort of what that feels like. And if you can do that, you're achieving, the same thing. So that's really how I, that's still the way I.

Chris Detzel: Because I, I think this is important is that, so you went to this diet sports dietician first and spent a lot of time and effort for months and months.

Literally, I remember you weighing different things and doing all these things to make sure, yeah. Eating the right things, measuring things, and it made a big change like that. It was obvious even in your body, like you looked great before, but like just the way your body started to kind of change.

So that was one. And then two is. You hired a coach, like several months later. I don't know if it was like a year later or eight months later, I don't remember. But what I do know is from there you started seeing substantial gains in your marathon times. Yeah. And your training. [00:21:00] Yeah.

Yeah. So let's then go back to your, you've done the the marathon or maybe move forward to when you went to Dallas. I remember the picture still, and when you PR Yeah.

Lea Ivy: Yeah. So that was December of 2018. Yeah. We had the goal had been, for me to PR at Wine Glass, which was back I think in October that year.

But as luck would have it. I hardly ever get sick, but it meant something got its fangs in me, like the week of that race. And by the time we got up to Corning, upstate New York. I could barely speak like I had bronchitis, just really bad. I was like, I'm running this race.

We flew all the way to Buffalo, New York, and now we drove what, like three hours to get to this small town. Everybody says this race is, it's point to point. It's a gentle downhill. I was like, this is PR territory. And I was just sick as a dog and I still ran a sub three 30.

Chris Detzel: I remember you running a lot of three thirties and then eventually you got to three 20 and then started to even get better than that. What the goal there was, I [00:22:00] was gonna try to hit three 20 there. Like I was, my PR before that had been 3 21 flat in Chicago. I think that was in 2014.

Lea Ivy: And I was like, I got I that too,

Chris Detzel: right?

Lea Ivy: I got, yeah, you were, that was our first away race together, I think. Yeah. And then I was like, I wanna, I gotta get under three 20. And I was supposed to do, I was gonna do that at Wine Glass because I was like, this is a, you were ready? Yeah, I was. I was ready. It's a point to point, there weren't gonna be a lot of turns.

It wasn't, that screaming downhill at the Revel races, it's just a gentle downhill. I'm like, I can handle that. And then, I just got that, it's like everybody has a story of getting sick before race. Something lying enough and, yeah. So still, I still did fine, but I was like, huh.

But when I got home. Liza, my coach at the time said, I'm just gonna say this now and I don't want you to feel any kind of pressure, but I think that you have the fitness and you didn't go all out there. If you wanna turn it around and let's see if we can race Dallas, which was at that time.[00:23:00]

About, I think maybe eight to nine weeks away. We can do that. And so I said, okay, if you think I can do that and it won't just, dig myself into a hole then I'll do it. And so we did, I took a little bit of time, downtime or whatever, and I got back on the horse and I thought Dallas is not the easiest race to pr, I was like, I just.

I don't know about, I love Dallas do. I've run Dallas multiple times. I can't remember if I've done it five times or four times. The full, I've done the half a lot as well. But I said, oh, okay, we're gonna, I'm gonna go all in, I'll go all in for Dallas. We'll just, we'll see we'll see what we can do.

And I remember that day we got the best weather. We just got blessed.

Chris Detzel: I was chilly. I was a spectator that time, that day. It was

Lea Ivy: like 39 degrees at the start and it was sunny and yeah, I felt great and I ended up finishing in three 16 something and I was just overjoyed. I was like, over the moon, I was like, I cannot believe this just happened.

I survived that hill on Winstead and, it's just a, yeah, I was like, it was my [00:24:00] hometown race. And then it also just gave me a confidence boost as okay, maybe I could go sub three 15. Like I never thought like it, just it recalibrated what I thought I was capable of.

'cause at the time I was like, man, if I can just get under three 20, I'm gonna be on top of the moon. I don't have to do, I don't have to work hard. How old were

Chris Detzel: you when you hit that pr?

Lea Ivy: 40 43. 40 43 and 44. 43. I can't do that right now. I do know how old I was when I prd in Houston, which was in January, 2020 before the world fell apart.

If you remember five years ago I was sick as a dog that day. Yeah, you were supposed to run the half and you didn't even run the half 'cause you were really sick. Probably. You had I was in the

Chris Detzel: bed the whole time for

Lea Ivy: probably had covid and didn't know it.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, we didn't know, we didn't know about Covid until two weeks later.

Lea Ivy: I mean it was here. I think we knew ah, but I dipped right under three 15 yeah. Three

Chris Detzel: 14,

Lea Ivy: yeah. 55, which is whatever. It's still three 14 right after three 15 and not in super [00:25:00] shoes I might add. And now when I think about it, I'm like, I don't even know if I could race it without super shoes.

But yeah, it was another, it was a beautiful day in Houston. It's like one of those days you get in Houston, you either get really good weather or you get not so good weather. And

Chris Detzel: so you're

Lea Ivy: 40? I was 45. Okay.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, you had great weather. It was amazing.

Lea Ivy: Yeah, it was really nice. Yeah, so I prd in the marathon at 45, pretty awesome.

Yeah, I don't really know that I could PR again at this point, just because, not really so much because of my age now or whatever. It's just the amount of work that you have to do as you start maturing as an athlete, and especially as you become. A woman who is menopausal when all your estrogen, you are chat and and things change.

And now you have to work twice as hard just to maintain much less to gain things. And this past year, well in 2023, I had a really good race in Chicago. If I could have stayed outta the Portos, I probably would've dipped under [00:26:00] three 15 again. But I ended up running 3 21 and change and I wanted to ride that high.

Into 2024. I was gonna turn 50, I was going to, race even harder, was, what was it, Icarus or whatever. I, we flew who, you fly too close to the sun and then then you get burned. I started feeling that in the spring of 2024. I started having some nagging pain in my.

Like butt cheek, where it connects to your hamstring and you're just like, ah. It's just an aches and pains. I've been running marathons for a long time. Something always hurts or whatever. The pain just migrates around except this kind of state and was a little nagging, but whatever.

I was having some foot pain and my left foot, so the opposite foot. The ball of my foot, and I was even having some swelling with that, and I just was like, eh, I don't know what it is. I ran through it, I got through Boston, all this and that, and then I was like, okay, for the summertime I'm gonna really focus on speed, and that's when my hamstring really [00:27:00] balked and I started to feel some sharp pain there whenever I would try to accelerate.

So I said, okay, I gotta stop and see what's going on. So that sent me, through an odyssey of seeing multiple doctors, multiple opinions, MRI, everything just turned out to be chronic, but not really. Yeah, maybe overuse, but just nothing was acute. It wasn't something that had just happened or it's not like I tore a ligament or anything.

I did tear ligament in my foot, but it happened over time. It was just chronic tearing. Same thing with, I just had some tendinopathy and so anyway, I had been in pt, I've been doing like. Diligent pt basically for the last six months of 2024. I cleared my racing schedule. I was supposed to race Indianapolis last November.

So I canceled all of that. I just canceled everything. I did not I really probably should have stopped running in June, July, but we had that trip planned in September where we were going to the Alps and we were gonna be doing a lot of running and I needed to be in good enough shape. Yeah.

Hiking and running, and so I could run [00:28:00] slow. And I say slow, I could we weren't

Chris Detzel: gonna cancel that trip, so

Lea Ivy: we were not canceling that trip, obviously.

Chris Detzel: Trip. Yeah.

Lea Ivy: That was not gonna happen. We

Chris Detzel: would've if, no. We would've been really hurt, but. But

Lea Ivy: we had a wonderful time and, but I had told myself that the last day that we ran there, I was gonna stop running for a month.

I was just gonna, I tried everything else, but I'm just gonna stop running. And so I remember it was Friday, September 13th, and that was the last day I ran for, and I actually took five weeks off. I did not run at all for five weeks, was the long, which is the longest stretch that I have not run in over 12 years.

So it was quite an eye-opener for me. But, you know what, this guy didn't fall. Nothing. Nothing terrible happened. I didn't gain up. It's, there's a

Chris Detzel: few important things to go back. So one of the things is for 12 years you were not injured at all. Maybe some pain. That's true.

Lea Ivy: Aside from, regular aches and pains and here and there, I might have, but no, I did not have any type of.

Sidelining injury, I did not have to [00:29:00] take any extended time off. So yes, and I credit a lot of that to smart training, and that's because I had a coach who was very attuned to, my, my particular running style, my, my life, what's going on in,

Chris Detzel: I agree. But the things that you're not bringing up is the weight training you've been doing.

The stretching, the, all of those things that I didn't, coaching, we didn't do a

Lea Ivy: lot of, part of the, I didn't do a lot of stretching to be quite honest. All throughout. I am like the world's. Stiffest I'm a like 10 woman. I really, and I was that way before I started running.

And we all know that if you run long distance for a long time, it just makes you stiffer and stiffer. So if I could go back and change some things, I would've done some stretching. Now, I'm not saying you have to do yoga. If you do yoga and you like it, great. I wish I liked it. I don't, I'm not gonna do it.

I'll do some certain stretches that like my PT has showed me and some things that I also worked with a personal trainer [00:30:00] for about a year and a half, and she showed me a lot of mobility things that I could be doing, but those are things that I started to slowly incorporate. But I will say that I have always spent time in the gym, so I did go to the gym and do those things.

As well as run for the last 12 years. So I haven't just run. So yeah, I think that made a big difference. Also, my diet was a lot better over the past 10 years and that means eating enough calories. Also eating, proteins and fats and carbs and not just a bunch of carbs or, not, not a lot of processed food, if I could avoid it.

So yeah, I think there's that. I think some of it's just, a little bit of luck and genetics. Some people are just a little bit more injury prone than others, but yeah, overall I think you have to really, I also. I don't overdo it in training. I'm a big proponent of running slow, whatever slow is for you until it's time to run fast.

And I do think that most people run too much too [00:31:00] fast and it catches up with you. It does. You think it doesn't in the moment because it's easy for you, but it all adds up and then it's a lot of stress on the body. So one thing that I'll, when I pace runners or I. Like when I worked with DRC and we would have runners in a program, I would try to explain to them, you're not gonna gain anything by running your easy runs on the fast range of your easy pace.

If you're supposed to run anywhere from 10 to 10 40. Running at 10 all the time doesn't mean you're gonna be a faster runner. What matters is if you can do those, the whole training program, but be well rested enough to absorb all your speed work and things like that's what's gonna get you faster.

You have to marathoning and racing marathons is. It's hard. There's a difference between racing a marathon and running a marathon. And if you wanna race marathons and you wanna do well, you have to follow a structured program. And you can't just be out there doing every ra, every run on the fast range, the fast end of your pace [00:32:00] range or whatever it is.

You should be running easy when it's supposed to be easy. You should be running recovery when it's supposed to be recovery, and you should be running speed when you're supposed to be doing speed. And that's, I've, I pretty much followed that, but I'm a rule follower,

Chris Detzel: yeah, you are.

Lea Ivy: I like to run with groups.

I do, and I started running more with groups, but my program is less structured now. I knew well enough when I was training to hit the particular goals that I was trying to hit. I couldn't run with other people. Yeah. Because, or people would sometimes ask me what pace are you gonna run? I don't know.

I'm gonna run an easy pace.

Chris Detzel: That might be,

Lea Ivy: that's, I'm gonna run whatever feels easy to me. It might be 10 minutes a mile, it might be nine minutes a mile. I can't tell you that until I get out there because maybe I'm really tired from the day before, because I did, speed work or I stayed up late or I had a really hard day at work.

And so tomorrow's easy run might be slower than it normally would be. It doesn't matter. It's an easy run. That's right. So I think that's, yeah. Other thing

Chris Detzel: that somebody told me once, not so long ago [00:33:00] was Jose said, look, I've been doing this for 20 something years. What I care now about is longevity.

In the sport. Yeah. Yeah. He does run fast. He still runs, under six minute miles when he does fast marathons. So he's really fat. We'll go out on a Sunday and it will run a 10 minute mile, like for 10 miles or something like that. Just, yeah. There's no reason to run that fast,

Lea Ivy: yeah. And some people can tolerate, running on the faster end of their eec. I, I'm not saying that's a wrong thing to do. I'm just saying if you're finding yourself getting injured or dealing with aches and pains or things like that or wondering why you're not getting faster it's.

Probably not. You might wanna just consider that, think about that. Because it's very easy to do, to just run too much too fast.

Chris Detzel: So as we look at, for six months. Somewhat recent actually. Really recent kind of hurt once they get outta running. Yeah, instead of running, you actually did do a lot of more heavier weights and [00:34:00] you did a lot of weight stuff, but then you're back into running again, so that's good.

'cause now you have Boston and then London. Yeah. Talk about. How that's been going and what you're thinking long term now, or at least this year?

Lea Ivy: I don't have any goals for Boston. Certainly not London of being six days after Boston. But I don't have any goals for Boston other than to just enjoy and celebrate the race.

That's usually my goal in Boston because that's, I consider it a victory lap. That's, I never set out really also to run consecutive Bostons like, but after two or three times I was like, okay, if you

Chris Detzel: can it.

Lea Ivy: I was like, maybe I can streak this. I started learning about people who Streak did, and then it just became a.

A personal challenge to me, maybe like a commitment that I made to myself every year. It's can you commit to yourself and to the craft of running, that you're gonna train to to hit this goal, to qualify every year you because for us running amateurs, it's like our Olympics, and it's it's a magical experience.

I can't [00:35:00] describe, I can words every time I go. I get just as excited about it when I get there as the first time, the magic doesn't fade and when you round that last corner and you see the finish line, it's, it's just a celebration when you run for a long time and you've been there like doing this for a decade or more.

And it's just. You're like, wow, I've been able to do this for a long time now. It's just it's just been a personal goal of mine. So at this point, I don't know if I will, because I did not, I always race a fall marathon in part so that I would have a qualifier in hand for the next Boston, and then I would not need to worry about Requalifying at Boston.

Because it is has been a more technically challenging race for me, even though I've run it many times and I. Excuse me, understand the course, but so if I don't qualify this time in Boston, I do not have a. Qualifying marathon to sign up for the next Boston, and I'm gonna let the chips fall where they may, if I qualify, then I will decide in September if I'm gonna run it [00:36:00] again.

You'll do that again if you qualify, which I probably will 'cause the FOMO is really strong. If I don't qualify, then that's that's where we are. All that to say that it has been really challenging getting back into running the longer distances for me. It's something actually for the last couple of I think I trained so hard.

Leading up to Chicago in 2023, I really didn't realize that. I was on the point of burnout again, and I was I should have taken a step back and said, no let's chill out for the spring. And hindsight is 2020, but, I was already starting to feel ugh, this is a grind.

Like I, all this marathon pace and trying to, these really long runs. I just wasn't getting the fulfillment out of the training. And that, that is the. If you're not always happy in training. Sometimes runs are just, you just gotta get 'em done, and that's just the way it is.

But if you're not really enjoying running long, longer distance and the training, then it's time to think about other things. And so that's where I am now. And especially with the injury in a way was a blessing because it made me realize [00:37:00] that you can. I can't, in fact stop running for five weeks and the world does not end.

Five years ago I would've, maybe felt a lot differently about that. This because I was really, and we all go through that. Some people over identify with their work and. Over identify with, maybe a parenting role or something. And, I was over identifying with, myself as a runner and I run marathons and that's what I do.

And if I can't run marathons, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen? And that was actually my thought process is I was, in the beginning stages of getting these injuries addressed, was. What am I gonna do now? It opened my eyes up to the fact that there's so many other things you can do and maybe focusing on something like shorter distances, which is something I never really allowed myself to even think about because I was always so hyper-focused on the long stuff that, you know the idea of running a really, can I run a faster 5K? Can we pr a 5K now? Like I've never trained for five Ks.

Chris Detzel: Are you bringing me this into this? You said we,

Lea Ivy: huh?

Chris Detzel: Are you bringing me into [00:38:00] this? 'cause you said we.

Lea Ivy: Sure you can, we can race a five KI mean, that'd be really hard for me to beat two in a 5K, but I can make you done, I can run fast enough to make you nervous.

So that's always the goal. Yeah. So that, that's where we are now. I'm looking forward to having a good race in Boston. I've been doing the work, I have been able, my body's been able to tolerate the longer distances. It's just been harder for me, I think mentally to do them. Just 'cause I'm, I'm just not as, I'm not into the training as much as I would've been. Of course, I don't have any type of performance goal. I just would like to run and enjoy the race. We'll just have to see what happens now. London is just, party pace the whole way.

It's just gonna be what's, walk, jog, walk, jog. Seriously. Like the last thing I wanna do is re-injure myself or hurt myself after I have. Come all this way and I would never advise somebody to run two marathons six days apart. I just would not, but people do it. I doing it. Because I was trying to get my six stars, and even at this point, I am [00:39:00] undecided as to whether I'm gonna complete that journey and go to Tokyo.

They have added a seven star now, Sydney, which you know, is great. But, I've spent 10 years trying to get my six stars. I had to buy my way into London. I'll have to buy my way into Tokyo if I want that. And just after listening to some experiences at the most recent. Tokyo, I'm I don't know if I want to, if I wanna do that now, that could change.

I'm leaving it all up to, I'll make that decision when I get to it. But, yeah, so that's I'm looking forward to a lot of unstructured running after Boston and London for the first time in a long time. Not having a goal race on the calendar, that'll be something kind of foreign to me.

But I think it'll be good for me 'cause it teaches me to just be more, less serious about my running. Not that I won't run, of course I'm still gonna run, but I'm not gonna be focusing on longer miles. I wanna focus more on if anything, it'll be some shorter distance racing. I know we have signed up for the Houston half next January.

We [00:40:00] both love that race. I can't, in fact, my, is my PR there. Yeah, I think my PR is there in the Houston. Half 1 31 or something. No. My PR is like 1 33 something I think. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I can probably focus, if I wanna focus on a big goal, I think that may be the goal is to try to really raise that.

'cause that's an excellent half.

Chris Detzel: Half marathons are way more fun.

Lea Ivy: Yeah. And the training doesn't take over your life the way that a marathon does, but No, but I would really like to maybe focus on that as a long-term distance goal and then maybe just focus on the shorter stuff for a while, and not to say that I'm giving up completely on, on marathons, but, maybe stepping away from those for a while, because I also want my body a little bit

Chris Detzel: of a break. Something that you've done a really good job over time is that you've gone through this before, this burnout of marathons. Now you've always run the Boston every year, so you've always had that qualifying time to either during Boston or even, I remember a time you're like, [00:41:00] I gotta do something different.

And the thing that you spent for two years plus was focusing in on trail and ultra. Because you are actually burned up. This is a very similar scenario and one thing, you're very good, many things, but in addition to, you're very good at recognizing that and then just saying, in a healthy way, I think to say, let's try something different.

Whether it's let's go into hardcore weight training and then do some five Ks, 10 Ks, whatever, and focus in on that. I think he will for a little while. But. You seem to always come back to this marathon thinking, we'll see what happens. That's something that, it's fun to see your evolution because I get to see it all day every day, but it's, I get to watch it and just see, you reinvent yourself in some different ways.

You've done it a lot, and it's cool to see. But you've always said, I still wanna go do, whether it's running or training or something, you're still in the thick of. Doing stuff hardcore. You're still hardcore.

Lea Ivy: Yeah, inactivity is not an option for [00:42:00] me. I'm a very active person, so if, I was to sustain an injury where I, God forbid, they were to say, you can't run anymore like this is, that'd be devastating to me.

I'm not gonna lie, of course, I love running, but I will find other ways, I'll find some other sport, some other activity to work to excel at. I'm really excited about. Getting back into the gym and focusing on actually, gaining strength and like, how much can I binge press and how much can I squat and how much can I deadlift?

And, those are not things that I, you think about as a distance runner. You just wanna be strong enough to prevent injury and, maybe get your legs battle ready if you're doing a downhill or a hilly course or something like that. But you don't need to be able to binge press.

Heavyweight to be aware. But I think it's cool, 'cause I. I've noticed, and that's another thing, when you're new at something, you notice gains very quickly when you're consistent. And, I'm way past that in running now. Like for me to eke out a second, a [00:43:00] second faster is, I have to do so much work for that, and I've I'm bumping up on the limits of like my fitness and my capability.

It gets harder and harder to sustain that level of training when you're like, huh. You might not, you might train for months and you run two seconds faster than. And you're like was that really worth it? Whereas you train for months, several months in the gym and you're gonna see some.

If you haven't, now of course you're gonna bump up against the same thing if you're weight training for a long, for a while. There's always something else to do. We bought the pull-up bar. We have the pull up bar in the house. Now have goals of doing pull-ups and chin-ups. Now, those are very difficult to do, but it's very satisfying when you can do several of those and you realize now my strength's actually improving.

Always a work in progress.

Chris Detzel: Lea, this has been really great. Is there something that maybe I should have asked but that I might have missed that you can think of? No, I think we covered all, covered your whole entire journey. This has been really great having you on. I really appreciate having you on.

And I know others, it's funny 'cause [00:44:00] they've been asking to have you on as well. I was like, when's Lea gonna get on? I was like, I don't know, like whatever.

Lea Ivy: I think they like your post-race videos when I'm dying on the floor of a hotel room. Better, but. We used to do

Chris Detzel: that. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Lea, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you everybody for tuning in to another DFW running talk. Don't forget to rate and review us. And until next time, take care everyone, and thanks again, Lea.

Lea Ivy: Thank you.