Running for Alex: Jana Kizakova's Emotional Road to Boston

DFW Running Talk: Jana Kizakova
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[00:00:00] Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Zel and today's special guest is Yanna. Janna. How are you? I'm good. Good. How do you say your last name again? Kva. Okay. I'm not even gonna try. Yana, you have a great story. We are here at Boston at the park Plaza Hotel and the day before the marathon, and I appreciate you coming on.

I wanna hear a little bit about your running journey. When did you start running? I think I've been running all my adult life pretty much, but it was more like. More like meditation and like easy runs. But I ran my first marathon in 2017. Okay. Just from curiosities. Wanted to see if I can do it.

I put that as a re resolution of the 2017 New Year. Yeah. Love it. So it wasn't a board at my workplace, so I I had to do it now. So that's how it started. And you, how many have you done overall? 12. Okay. So you're a professional marathon eagle. No. Getting there anyway. So was your first, was it really hard?

It was actually better than I expected. Training was hard. Yeah. I just wanted to like. [00:01:00] Run it, do something and see if I can do it. And I did like really good on considering like what I expected. I think it was like 3 44. Dang. That's really good for your first marathon. But then I said I never gonna do it again.

And I, I only meant it, a lot of people say that I meant it and I didn't run it for five years. Yep. It's been 10 years since I've run a marathon. Yeah. So five years. There was no marathon and no intention to run it. We'll get you back into it. It was like interesting story, like my husband signed up for one of the marathon in Victoria, Canada and I said I'm gonna go with you, but I'm not gonna run it.

And I meant it. Yeah. But there was like 10 weeks before the marathon, I went for run on a sea in Vancouver where I live and it's like one of my favorite place and it's spot of the sea that reminds me like one of friend, like he's not with us anymore. And I just got inspired by that place and in my mind.

I'm just gonna run the marathon. And I set up the goal, like if I'm gonna run it, I need to do it better than I done before. So I set up the goal to qualify for the [00:02:00] Boston, and that's how the last three years, almost four years journey started. So now, is this Boston Marathon your first, or It is my first.

Let's go a little bit back to the marathon that you qualified Boston for. What was that like? And then tell me a little bit about the story of Boston that, to you. It took me like 11, no nine marathons. Wow. Actually, to qualify. So finally I get in, I, that's a story in itself. Sometimes you just don't get in your first time.

It takes a while. Oh no. It was like lots of up and downs. There was like one race, my shoes, but fell apart. What? I came back without. Two inches of the, without the wow part of the shoes. It took us a while. There was like lots of good marathons and I missed the cut last year. So I qualified but didn't make it at the end.

So it was a huge thing. Alright, so let's talk about that qualifying marathon. What'd you run? What race was it? So it was the marathon, mountain to beach in California, Ventura. It's M two B, so mean to B. It was my ninth marathon of trying to get to [00:03:00] the Boston, and nine is my lucky number.

And I think like it was like the best marathon I done I done like one in Texas actually in Houston, so it was in January. And then I actually qualified there, but like just by one minute, which I knew I didn't make it a cut. And then in April I had 10 minutes of the time. I couldn't believe it.

It was amazing. I just made it. What was your time? Three 19. You've got really fast, haven't you? So that was, that's great. It was a good one. You think you're gonna run it? So let's go to the first question first. As I mentioned like earlier, all this like Boston Journey was dedicated to to Alex, to the person who is like not with us anymore.

That's how I got inspired to sign up and follow that journey. Yeah. And man marathons is a lot of that hold me like accountable and not giving up. I was like, like one day I am gonna fake her. That's pretty crazy. And yeah, just like finally done it like all these journeys gonna be.

Dedicated to him. And I'm running it in his honor with his name on my t-shirt. So it's, it means a lot. Can you talk a little bit [00:04:00] about who Alex is real quick? You know that he was a, like our manager at a place when I was still working and he is like such an amazing human being.

And he was like always like supportive. We were like as a boss and I used to met him on that seawall when I got inspired, like when I was running and there was like one day like I just couldn't really run. My legs were heavy and he met me at that spot and he just keep running with me at my slow pace back to the gym whenever.

And very good. Yeah. So it just, so as you go into running, what is your strategy is during the marathon? No ones strategy. That's like my original strategy was just pacing like cruising, dancing, having fun. My coach has different plans. I do have coach. Yeah. So he pushed me a little bit in a training block.

Yeah. Day, I will see how it feels. For me, it's just being here in Boston is like the Victoria. I really wanna remember that race. I really wanna remember the moments, like everything, what it means. So I just. I'm just so excited. That is exciting. Now that you've been here in [00:05:00] Boston, just the days before, when did you get, when did you get into Boston?

I came here on Saturday. Okay. Have you done anything that's fun or, Hey, I went to the stores and did bought these things. I don't know anything specific? Yeah. I not, I didn't do much, but I went to expo and got lots of stuff. The funny thing is that blue color is my least favorite color, but maybe get some color now.

I learned to have it as my favorite. Yeah. I just got like bunch of like memorable things, of course, like the jacket, some hoodies, and I was just like exploring, went to the finish line and yeah, just embrace the moment. I got like very emotional yesterday, so every step I was like crying and today it was more like dancing and like being more excited.

So it's just, yeah. I know I'm super excited for you. Anything that you know you can think of that we either missed or that, Hey, we didn't talk about this thing. Basically my motto is if you can dream and you can do it, so like whatever you. Said yourself to. Yeah. Like it is possible as soon as you have willingness to do the things and [00:06:00] just follow it and don't give up.

It's a great motto. Thank you so much for coming on to DFW Running Talk. Thank you everyone for tuning in. Make sure you go to DFW running talk.substack.com and subscribe to the newsletter and thank you so much. Thank you. Nice to meet you.