The Luke's Locker Legend: 30 Years of Fitting Shoes and Why Duncan Cragg Stopped Racing to Find His True Running Purpose

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

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

Duncan Cragg: I'm well, thanks.

Chris Detzel: I think you felt fairly well known within the running community here in DFW. You're one of the store managers at Luke's, I think we all of us runners have actually bought shoes from you or the store, so that's pretty cool.

Thanks for coming on. Oh, thank you. It's pretty exciting. I know you've been part of the running community for a long time, and I would love to get to know you a little bit as a runner, how you started and things like that. So let's start from the beginning. You've been running for a long time.

When did you start running and what did you run?

Duncan Cragg: When I was in elementary school, I couldn't quite make the track team, okay, because everything was very, obviously for the age groups for four Meter was the longest thing. I realized that wasn't my skillset, but I didn't get distracted. 'cause track and field is a kind [00:01:00] of a special welcoming to be inclusive of all kinds of abilities and distance and, even field events.

So as we got, as I got into high school, I just discovered that there was formats that were more designed for my nature. So the long distance runners got a little different kind of personality than the sprinter, and that's for sure. As you go through ages, people have just natural gifts to sprint, and they're normally little athletic kids and they normally get into other sports pretty quickly.

So the instant gratification is there, and what I learned was running was something that if you show perseverance and you work at it, it allows you to grow into a sport that you can take it on as your domain.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I love that.

Duncan Cragg: And you get introduced to 10 EL elements of that, but ultimately you still have to be accountable for yourself.

And I think that's a sport, not all athletes are wired that way. A distance runner tends to adopt that at a young age, and they carry that on for the rest of their lives. So it's hard for them to teach people [00:02:00] that because you gotta find it. And it's one of those things that just can happen.

So my existence today as a runner is I try and help people find that skill and the stuff will follow if the skill is honest, if it's not true to the person. I think that the passion or the impulse of achieving kind of changes because you get gratified or you go to a school of performance that you end up climbing very quickly and you get rewarded very easily.

And it's almost like the penance of the journey. And I think distance running allows you to do that. And I enjoy that journey. I've gone away from racing because of that. 'cause I enjoy the process of. And just modifying my movements to adapt and have a state of adapt and evolving.

Chris Detzel: So what, when you were racing that, like you were just getting too competitive and then you're like, man, I really enjoy the journey.

I don't wanna do this just too much.

Duncan Cragg: I like the I like to use the analogy Labrador with a tennis [00:03:00] ball. And I think a lot of people get motivated by signing up for a race, but the mindful journey of listening to your body and your needs and adaption, I think I may have been competitive.

I. I realized there's a double-edged sword to that. 'cause when you get pulled into that, you tend to sometimes not listen to yourself. 'cause you've got the rate the show goes on.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, that's right.

Duncan Cragg: I shifted gears early. I never went down the marathon path. 'Cause I just noticed that was there was that sort of once you get involved in that you chase your tail and you keep going down to improve your marathon time.

And there's a point where. You, it'll be an a semi. You realize that you're getting older or you've maybe shortened some of your ability to run more years in your life. So my marathon my, my metaphor for marathon is to run as long as I can and with quality movement to try and keep holding onto my fast twitch muscles and keep them exercised.

So I realized. As I ran, [00:04:00] got up into distances, people default to longer distances purely because they are getting slower when they age. And secondly there's a mindset that you just need to do a lot of hours in it and it becomes more practical if you're out there running 30 minutes to an hour.

Putting in two hours can be feasible. You just good bang for your buck and then you're round surrounded by a lot of people doing this. So I noticed there was a lot of this kind of mass pull of trying to get you involved into social runs marathon training. So I've always stayed clear of that.

I enjoyed the performance and the chase on a track. It's makes me feel a lot. Gets to that animal side of me. But the grinding away and mileages, I never enjoyed a long run or a Sunday run. I was always trying to question the functionality of that and did it anyway. But I realize that's not me.

Chris Detzel: That's interesting. So let's back up a little bit. I'm still curious about your running journey. And I, and thank you for providing that info because I think. One, one person said to me like, you [00:05:00] probably know Jose Lopez. One of the things he does run a lot, but he runs it at a lot slower pace, but runs really fast.

When he runs his halves or fulls and things like that. He said, Chris, I've been doing this since high school. I. Then I went to college to run and he goes, now I just try to think about longevity and how I can run for a longer time because of health. He wants to be able to do that for longer.

So to some degree you said some of that, but not exact, in a different way, but, so you started running in high or in elementary, high school, things like that. What? In high school, what did you run? Was it the mile, two mile or what?

Duncan Cragg: We basically had the half mile, the mile, the two mile. We ran anything that allowed you to be athletic.

And I realized there was a lot of athletic kids I ran against that the half the quarter mile and the half mile. But it was nice to find that I could play in that into the athleticism. It was good for my identity as a young kid developing. And purely I was just good hard work all year round.

So this like whole year of training, [00:06:00] there was always a good payout and it wasn't always really resting on talent so you could outrun people and serve them out, kick you, and it was you control the domain. I've always enjoyed that, but when you put talent in that together, you get something special.

Chris Detzel: For sure.

Duncan Cragg: A lot of those talented kids sometimes. Stratification gets satisfied so quickly, it's harder to get their attention to stay there. So it takes a certain personality of people saying, I wanna do this, and I want to take it to a level. That's way beyond college and it's very unique skill set there.

'cause those kind of kids are really thinking about their career. As a young kid, I felt like that I had a chance to see running as a tool to get to where I needed to go. But it was also a tool that could help me stay with who I was from being a kid. 'cause those impulses. Things that you develop your idea identity around.

They're very true when you're young and then you get all these distractions of other career paths and you go to school you study things and you go down and, but to take, draw from [00:07:00] that energy of who you are suddenly need to find, I think that becoming a teenager is right where a lot of these cool things happen.

I see it in Yeah, I agree. Did you, where'd you go to high school at? I'm from South Africa. Yeah, I went to school there. It was a very very I think you use, if you have an image of the sort of schooling of a, of the Harry Potter's uniforms and very English and colonial I. Rules and regiment.

I see some of the private schools have it here. We had a lot of structure, but it was also like, there was like a lot of machoism and they had more brutal sports like rugby and like football in America, but I think distance was like inclusive of for men and women and it happened all year round.

But it's no different. I see the same. Things in the schools. Yeah. Same personalities get pulled into it.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, that's right. So you mentioned that you used that as a tool running from, high school to, did you run in college or?

Duncan Cragg: I ran at SMU. Okay. They used track team back in the day.

[00:08:00] That's what brought me to the US was

Chris Detzel: SMU. Really?

Duncan Cragg: Yeah. So I recruited me out of high school. Obviously they went off world rankings and so I ran at a level that was, top of the nation, but I was a little different 'cause I always saw this as how I can rally up people around me. So I be growing up in South Africa.

I grew up with apartheid and the year that I graduated high school was the year they abolished apartheid. And it was an interesting thing because we were recruiting. And I was training with a lot of kids that legally we were not supposed to be training with. So we had like a freelance martley crew that would just meet up at a park and train together, but get the best out of each other.

Yeah.

Chris Detzel: So my

Duncan Cragg: endurance running was taught to me by how a lot of the rural African runners would just run naturally. In, in the bush or the, they just were very good at running cross country. Naturally. They didn't like track because it, they didn't have access to tracks and they just seemed like it was so imperial, like it was so [00:09:00] set and measured.

They loved road racing and they loved cross country, so there was always a division and the athletes. And then when apartheid was abolished, we were allowed to combine the two schools and friends, and they started recognizing our group as a, as a. A melting pot. And a lot of the athletes that came to SMU with me were out of my running group back in Africa.

Chris Detzel: No way.

Duncan Cragg: And so we were, 'cause we were ahead of the system, we were integrating before the government made it law. But it was also, we were frowned upon 'cause people weren't sure whether we were doing the legal thing or not. A lot of times people to avoid adversity just stayed away from commenting on us.

But our elevation of athleticism. Went to World world class level. So it was neat because we were sharing talents, but the, that's pretty cool. Yeah. That's good. I was lucky.

Chris Detzel: All right. And I'm gonna ask you about times and things, and I'm not sure if, I just wanna, I think that kind of puts it in perspective of where you were back in the day.

When you look at. [00:10:00] One, were you running, three miler or, in, in college or what was the

Duncan Cragg: Yeah so in college our, my, my specialty here was steeplechase, which is a 3000 meter or two mile for the high school runner, and it's run over hurdles. So it's like an obstacle course.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Duncan Cragg: Jump and everything. It was a, it's a novel race. A lot of people like to watch it because of the fallout on the water jump and. Exactly, I've seen it. In order to do that, you had to be able to be good from the half mile up to 10,000 meters. Taxes your body like a 5,000, 10,000 meter. So if you do a heat of it, it taxes takes a lot out of you.

Chris Detzel: Does huh?

Duncan Cragg: But a lot of you'll find there's also a melting pot. A lot of milers like it 'cause they have to be able to change gears all the time. So it's it's suitable there. But when I grew up, it was one of my events, but when you came to college, you tend to get used in what you're good at.

More than what, so it's gone. I just ended up by default. That was my role to [00:11:00] make sure I got the points in that category.

Chris Detzel: Got it.

Duncan Cragg: I always felt like I could be a miler or a half miler. And that's the thing I noticed with the younger kids here that I help with is the coach puts them in a position to be something in high school, but you really don't know what you, who you are, what you are, because sometimes you turn out to be a great marathon, but you put out as a 800 meter runner and vice versa.

If sometimes. If you say you show some talent, you end up getting pigeonholed and never getting a chance to experience the other things to your, when you start maturing.

Chris Detzel: What, so when you ran the miles since you seemed to, that was your thing, what was your best time that you were in?

Duncan Cragg: We grew up running 3000 meters and then in college I really, no, sorry.

When we, when I grew up around the 1500, we all metric. So that's like the mile equivalent.

Chris Detzel: So almost just 100 meters from that,

Duncan Cragg: but yeah. Yeah. So I was like a 3, 5, 1500 meter runner in high school. So it translates, I think it's like 4 0 5 pace high schooler. [00:12:00] It's but this is in the nineties, so today it's like that's average.

But back in the nineties it was, the gene pool was smaller and the talent was different.

Chris Detzel: Nobody was running a 4 0 5 back then, or it was rare,

Duncan Cragg: and also we were doing it, we were raised, I was at 7,000 feet above sea level. But it's just a whole different world. But the ability to translate that into other sports, like when you go to college, kids that have got a good mile pace, the coaches love that because that's what you're gonna finish your last mile in.

You just have to get to that last mile. So that's training. But an athlete is an athlete, whether you there, you're gonna out kick. So we don't want time trialers 'cause they don't do well past the conference level. Once you go to that finish, you also gotta finish a la or last lap, the sprint. So you just, you decide what you're gonna.

Train your VO two as to what you can handle. And so in college I ran less of the races I enjoyed. There's less diversity. Vr, I was stagnated in high school 'cause I didn't never get a chance To race In college. In college, yeah. It was just always the one thing I [00:13:00] did.

Chris Detzel: What the steeple chase, what was the distance that you mostly did?

What was the

Duncan Cragg: Yeah, so it was a three thou, it's only one race in, you do a 1500 when you're young. 'cause it's far, but it's 3000 meters. So 3000 meter race. It's, at the the eight 40 that's my in high school is 8 45 pace which is like over a hurdle race. Nine a 9 15, 2 miler, but over hurdles.

Okay, so it's

Chris Detzel: so you're running 9 52 mile with the hurdles

Duncan Cragg: a mile, but 15, about a 9 15, 2 miler over hurdle barriers and so on.

Chris Detzel: A 9 52 overall, oh my god, for.

9 52 mile that, that doesn't really sound that fast for the boat, for the 3000 meters, basically. Yep.

Yeah, it was a long time ago. All right you [00:14:00] ran in college, the steeple chase, is that what it's called? I did talk to somebody that was very interested in that once on this podcast. And they're still wanting to do it, they said it's really hard to find those kind of things these days.

So what was next? What'd you do after after college? You stayed in Texas, right?

Duncan Cragg: Yeah. Yeah. So I was, I had to figure out how I was gonna immigrate. 'cause that was my intention to be here and be part of this nation.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Duncan Cragg: So sport was my gateway came here. But I tried to bring the best values of things that I was raised around and bring it into, see where I can bring some of those things into the society.

Yeah. And or just keep practicing what I know. So we grew up with club systems like you. You have club soccer and Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Duncan Cragg: But most of our sport at a club level was thinking internationally, but at school level, you're just basically appeasing your region or your. Area or whatnot. And then your season's over and no one really knows.

And then the school kind of processes that. But [00:15:00] the club level things of growing you to being representative of your sport. And I found little club levels back when I, in the nineties when I got out of college. Club levels had some kind of existence for kids, but nothing for adults here. Our club system goes on until you, in your nineties.

They have age groups all the way up and people practice and do track workouts just like you would do in high school. Awesome. But up north they have it here just in the south, I think with the heat and everything. But when I started working for Luke's, the closest thing to that was the track meets they put on in the summer, which they put on this June.

And it's an all comers track meet for anybody in all ages. And that's where the steeple chase could be. Run for those who wanna run steeple chase at your any age. So we took for venues with steeple chase hurdles.

Chris Detzel: Are you guys still doing that or no?

Duncan Cragg: Yeah, we're doing it. We just prepare. We just look getting a venue together.

We, we've done it for, the last 40 years of our existence and I didn't know

Chris Detzel: that

Duncan Cragg: one After the Twilight meet in Oregon, so it was based out of [00:16:00] Oregon Full Knight's project.

Chris Detzel: Okay. So that's so interesting. I didn't know, but is there anything here in Dallas that you know for steeplechase?

Duncan Cragg: So it depends on the schools that we get access to.

'cause we have to contract with the facilities. Yeah. But TCU meets, we have one in TCU with our Fort Worth location and they have a steeplechase bar. It's a big draw. Everyone just comes to watch it just because it's a novel. It all depends if the schools have a, the high schools don't really have steeple yet, but it's don't have, or.

Chris Detzel: That's right. So then you, after college, you wanted to immigrate here basically, but you started working for Luke's to do that, or what's the

Duncan Cragg: it wasn't they ended up, I was fitting, I was doing gate analysis and fitting running shoes in Africa and that was a unique Okay. Way because it, it wasn't a, it wasn't really heard of over there.

And I just, one day we went to a store and I said, Hey, are you guys hiring? And I was 16. And I was trying to, I was trying to figure a way to make

Chris Detzel: some and [00:17:00] Luke's or some other place

Duncan Cragg: a store in Africa.

Chris Detzel: And in Africa. Got it.

Duncan Cragg: The irony of it, the person running it he ran in college for Oklahoma State back in the seventies and he went back and took the idea of specialty run to Africa and I ended up working for him as the first.

Kid he's ever hired. He had some adults. And so when I came to running college here, I said I needed to find a store that I can get my team the right equipment. 'cause everything was about what your team was sponsored by. And so the kids with injuries needed more attention. And I discovered Luke's back in college.

And then from there I realized that the people that got Luke's when the owners at the Lucas family, they were one of the pioneers of the whole specialty run. And the guy that I worked for in Africa, Johnny, who then opened up the Boulder running company later, 'cause he also immigrated, he was the guy when I was working for, knew the o, knew the owners of Luke's and there was a small world of little [00:18:00] triangle of.

Kinda

Chris Detzel: crazy, isn't it?

Duncan Cragg: Yeah, it was. And then when I graduated, they wanted to know if I can come and help because they saw what I had, my skills I had and doing GA analysis of that. So it was a easy, translated my athleticism into another opportunity.

Chris Detzel: That's awesome.

Duncan Cragg: Yeah. I

Chris Detzel: love that. It's a great story.

Duncan Cragg: This is 30 years of doing this.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Duncan Cragg: been doing it for a long

Chris Detzel: time's. Been around for a long time.

Duncan Cragg: It's unique. I think,

Chris Detzel: Just talking about looks a little bit is that I remember, you guys have gone through some ups and downs and now back ups, and it's really awesome to see, and running in DFW, I don't know if you agree, but has taken off, over the last feels like 10 or 11 years, maybe longer, but you know for sure over the last 10 or 11 years and even the last.

Three or four years after COVID, like COVID just seemed to ramp it up even more. I don't know what your thoughts are about that, but it feels like DFW has just exploded.

Duncan Cragg: Yeah. I think the city is so [00:19:00] well equipped for the trail systems and the energy behind trails, and it's a it's a cheap mans sport, but it's also very, it's not

Chris Detzel: really that cheap

Duncan Cragg: facilities and. It really works well to have an explosion when people just need to exercise. 'cause they find all kinds of reasons to run. But yeah our industry, there's more diversity, more run groups out there. They're doing all kinds of like new age running, like doing other things and running, just, it's mixing and, yeah.

So when Luke's first started, they mixed running in Western wear, and that was like the most, yeah. Talk about creating a.

So it just, it's happening now and with people just creating different groups. They're like their passions mixed with running writing's, just becoming a, the format to be sociable. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Gimme an example. [00:20:00] I'm curious 'cause I, I see some of these groups on. Instagram, there's this group called Run It Up, and they literally have 80,000 people on their Instagram and they show all these videos about here in Dallas, this is not anywhere.

And they're dancing and hanging out, having fun, and then they go running five Ks and stuff. It's just, I mean it's this fun kind of group to be a part of. And that's like literally 50 other groups, that are super serious, like the sloths are just intense, running two 30 marathons and things like that.

And I love the intensity as well, but. There's just on different levels, right? Run it up as, Hey, exercise can be fun. Let's all get together and just do some exercise, and run a little bit, and then the saucer on the other end, how fast can I get my marathon? And how, they have, they're running 80 to 120 miles a week, and just trying to get every little step that counts, and stuff like that.

But it's all the way from there, like it's crazy.

Duncan Cragg: Yeah. But that constant, the word running or walk around or whatever you want to do. As being part of a bigger thing, a bigger organism. I'm finding that helped me [00:21:00] integrate. 'cause it was into that, like universal language translates, but then everyone's alter ego is just working with this, whatever they're passionate about, let's merge these things and fuse them together.

And it's, yeah, it's been good. It's just an excuse to do something.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. And it's really doing something with your community, with other people, and that's running brings people together, it is. You mentioned it's individualized, because you are, especially if you're racing and things to go out and try to hit certain whatever, PRS or whatever, but.

It's also a great community sport where you, Hey, let's go run five or seven miles together. Let's be on a specific thing. Or people use it as dating kind of things,

Duncan Cragg: yeah. What a neat format. You can't really, I agree. You can't pretend out there.

Chris Detzel: That's how I met Leah.

Duncan Cragg: Yeah. Yeah. My

Chris Detzel: wife is through Dallas Running Club, and if it wasn't for that, then I would've probably never met somebody like that.

That's, she's pretty intense about our running and I can be as, not as intense, but I still enjoy it. And so our lives revolve around races [00:22:00] or at least some of our lives, and. It's fun, find somebody fit

Duncan Cragg: And you could meet a person from another part of the world and just quickly dive, dovetail in with them.

Just, it's neat.

Chris Detzel: It is really neat. That's the beauty about these communities is somebody you might not think you would ever talk to. You know that and all of a sudden you're having these long conversations with them 'cause you're running five or 10 miles with them every single Saturday or whatever it is.

And it's, I have a lot of friends now. Just in the running community that, that I would never have. And this podcast really helps a lot too, because I get to know them, a little bit more. And some of these really fast people, I would never run with them because, they're too fast even at their, slow paces.

So it's been, to me, it's been really great. Yeah. Yeah. What are you seeing? So some of the things we'll, let's get into your expertise a little bit 'cause I'm interested is, over the years shoes, technology has changed and I think that you are seeing a lot faster times in the half marathons and the marathons and probably other, distances.

It's obvious partly due to the shoes, don't you [00:23:00] think?

Duncan Cragg: Humans, the chasing times is always gonna, you always get your gym pool gets. And people performing better. And then you put a bunch of those people together and they elevate the performance. But I love that you said that.

So what I think Footwear's done and this is there's different groups that come in that want different things from running. Like some people, they're out, they're held bent and running is super fast time and whatever that is to them. And you gotta understand that mentality to be able to help them with product 'cause they investing in a, an idea there.

So when you have these shoes that. Question like if you aided achievement. Changed because you can buy a part of the outcome, you can buy into a part of the outcome. You can choose your equipment that's gonna aid you. And yeah, we are, it is a tool and if we can choose our tool, the best suited tool, I think that the stuff that I find is interesting is people can train with less injuries.

So the injury prevention [00:24:00] side is one thing, but also people have obtained injuries from things they don't understand why they're injured, getting injured from it, 'cause it's aiding them. So it's got a, it's got a different kind of injury out there injury that a plated or a rockish shoe is now utilizing muscles that even the medical industry are scratching their head at, saying this is not functional movement 1 0 1, this is aided movement.

This is an injury related to interesting something. Pushing somebody. We don't know what it is. And so a lot of the stuff is being watched right now. And so you've turned your product into a big component of your mechanics. But back when I grew up racing flats or straightforward run shoes, polyurethane shoe was done.

You've got symptoms that your shoe need to be replaced. 'cause you start getting common issues. But now no one knows where those issues are coming from because you've got all these extra variables now and then your paces are encouraged to move. So if you have a shoe that makes you [00:25:00] perform better how, on, how honest is that to who, what you've done and who are you doing it for?

Is it for the number? And I just think it changes the playing field. 'cause you're saying if this could make me do this, if I buy this, it would make me do that. It just changes the sport.

Chris Detzel: I agree. But I think that for sure and you make a very good point about the the mechanics and just how you're, we're not sure like the injuries, what's causing the injury and things like that, because.

I, I did start wearing a plated shoe for a little while and found that my Achilles was starting to hurt. I loved the shoes, but the more I ran it, the worse it was. And so I quit doing that and I don't even use the plate anymore and I'm fine, for the most part now. But it took me like five or six months to I.

Figure that out and get over it. But I do think that technology over time and anything changes, if you look at the way we work, for example, AI is changing everything and how people work, like creating content all like I'm creating this content now used to, I'd have to think [00:26:00] about a title and a description, and just really use my brain to do it.

Now I could put the whole transcript and create a transcript of the video, and then it. Can tell me, like chat GBT or Gemini or whatever, the title, description. So technology is gonna help us one way or another, whether it's in shoes or apparel of some sort. And people are gonna use it to get, better Now, is that our true term?

I don't know. Like fair enough. But I think that's just how we as humans will do, we'll always go. It's something that can enhance our ability to do better, especially if it's legal,

Duncan Cragg: oh that's a good question. So the shoes that aid you are getting removed from the actual driving experience of running, gritting it, seeing, feeling the earth.

Fatigue. And so these things are getting remedied by product. And so you're moving one step away from a Harley-Davidson into a an SUV that's almost airtight and you can't even feel the wind in your hair. It's yeah. Whatever you wanna do, whatever you want [00:27:00] from that. There's different things.

Think you can be in a wind tunnel as well, and I think if you want to feel fast, it'll let you feel fast. If you wanna feel It's a great knowledge, experience.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah. You can buy the experience. People do. Luke's has exploded on selling all these shoes that they can't even keep in stock sometimes.

Because so many people are buying them,

Duncan Cragg: we'll try.

Chris Detzel: I think that, you make some really good points. I really I like that. I never thought about, do you, whatever I saw you out running the other day, by the way. We were running at White Rock Lake and the sun was in my eyes, and then I think I was running with Jose.

He, that's dunking, it's oh, because I think I waved at you. I was like, I can't see his face. But so you're, do you run what do you run in? What's your kinda

Duncan Cragg: Yeah. I run about an hour a day. But I have I try and keep it diverse and speed and agility try and play. I just try and move better.

I love the idea of Park Hall where you just go along and you find your way and get excited about running along a terrace and you [00:28:00] just do it and just play around and whenever I have a chance to talk to someone, Albert, I go and I love this mindful movement and just.

Like the original fight, lack where people just run by impulse instead of 30 seconds on, 20 seconds off, which isn't,

Chris Detzel: you just run

Duncan Cragg: however you want for, is the whole concept of just moving I

Chris Detzel: That too.

Duncan Cragg: Yeah. And it's hard to sell someone. How do you do it? It's like a, I don't know.

It's. It depends

Chris Detzel: when you feel like it just go

Duncan Cragg: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Kind of stuff.

Duncan Cragg: Yeah. Yeah. So my writing's become that I enjoy it and if I find people that are interested in that, I sync with them. And I just think it's I think there's needs more of that thinking instead of and structure.

'cause we always creating structure around us. It's one of the sports you can just be free at. There's so much of it to be structured.

Chris Detzel: Maybe that's the allure for like trail running. Is that trail running it's this beautiful place and some places sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's easier. It just depends on the terrain.

Can't. Some people [00:29:00] can speed through it, but it's really difficult, right? So it's a different mindset, and that allows you to just get out there and be free, you can run fast, you might fall,

Duncan Cragg: but that's that. Talk about a different crowd. I. I've talked about distance runners and faster runners in high school or middle school.

The ultra runners take that to the whole, that's the distinction from the regular marathoner is they are, yeah. They have this spurt that's just a different breed. And it's interesting. Those guys it's. They're just, just their philosophies are very different. There is a,

Chris Detzel: I like doing both, to be honest.

Duncan I don't like to, I've done some 50 Ks and stuff, fun, but a little too much for me, but I like being out on the trail, I like being out on the road, I don't, like some years I'm more on the road or some year, years. I'm more on the trail.

Lately it's been on the road, more people are on the road so that you can run with,

Duncan Cragg: but, and also if you pass someone on a path and a trail, there's a different greeting than if you pass someone on the road. It's just, it's oh, we've gotta share this spot right here.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, that's [00:30:00] right. That's right.

Have you done much trails in the past?

Duncan Cragg: I love, I'm a big fan of cross country, but I never run these ultra marathons or any of this, I've never run. Passed a half marathon, but I'm interested in running some halves more to as a destination deal instead of. Competing. So

Chris Detzel: going out on a trail and run a half marathon?

Duncan Cragg: Yeah, I just, I enjoy trail half. I enjoy playing around. If it's a venue where I can see even better,

Chris Detzel: There's plenty, like Blaze Trails has lots of different trails that are somewhat local, like that. They're not like destination kind. Mountain like trails, I do the destination stuff to where my wife and I did this, it's called Trans Rockies.

It's a lot of miles. It's 120 miles in six days, but you go from one destination to another in Colorado. It was just beautiful, like just going up the mountains and and we just wouldn't say took our time, but we didn't, we weren't gonna win it, and it was just the beauty of being out on the trails and running and just being out.

We even did an Alps trip, in the Alps. Back in September of last year, and it was so beautiful. Like [00:31:00] we just jogging the trails, did it with the group, and so I just love being out in nature for the most part. I don't want to camp or anything if I don't have to, but you're picking to helping kids and things like that and the running I always see you at the lake, at Norbu.

Yeah. Tell me more about that.

Duncan Cragg: It's an interesting thing. I have a child who he is about to go to high school and. He I didn't want to have him to live up to my family's reputation of runners so he doesn't really know me as a runner. I've never really raced in front of him. He doesn't know I do that, did that.

But I figured he would get wind of it one day and

Chris Detzel: especially after his podcast, he's gonna listen.

Duncan Cragg: Yeah, probably. But yeah, we all my brothers and I were like avid runners and so we we want our children to find their own way and 'cause we found it on our own. And so this group that I got together about four years ago, it was just before the pandemic or during the pandemic and where all places were closed.

You couldn't compete but run together social distancing and whatnot. And I felt [00:32:00] like there's a missing element in the community where. They have organized track clubs for kids, organized training groups for adults, but very little is done for adults and kids to share their experience together.

And I often saw like Dallas Running club, some parents would bring their kids to it. The kids were on the side and just wasn't their crowd. And I said, one of the things I liked about club systems is everyone's age group is inclusive of a big team. You run under your club, you have the master runners all hanging out at the barbecue.

Cooking and then the kids are doing their track, but they all did the track workouts together, and we are sharing this, but everything here is if you want to interact with your child, you would have to sit on the sidelines and encourage them. So during the pandemic when no one was meeting, soccer fields are closed.

And I thought if we do trail running and people are space between each other, we could probably cause off without making any red flags. And 'cause the kids needed to get out and do stuff, [00:33:00] why would that be better than doing it in the woods? So we thought about using Nor Park. 'cause it's safe and it's not too far.

But the idea was I wanted to be something where if a parent wants to bring a child and they bring it and participate, whether they walk or run, they're getting out there and then going through the process and the exercise together. So they get in the car and they talk about the exercise, not watching and then saying, you could have should have done that.

Or maybe you needed a push, maybe you needed a back off. But when they're participating, they can feel it without. Imagining. So there was a lot of families that came that used this as some kind of communicative tool. The kids would end up bonding with each other and the parents would bond with each other.

They would talk about the situation where they could, they out share, sharing the same situation where they're trying to bring the child maybe off a com, off a computer game into world the [00:34:00] outdoors. And there's nothing them nicer than a natural run. So these runs are put together. Are designed to not measure the kids, but so they don't feel obligated to meet anything.

So we do a 20 minute run three days a week, and we do a dynamic warmup and a static stretch. My job is to teach them what dynamic warmup is and a static stretch. That's how we collect everyone to meet. So we've got a 10 minute margin, and then the 20 minute workout is we have an exercise like it's an obstacle course or it's a trail run.

The clock goes for 20 minutes. They run and they do as many loops as they feel fit to, whether they walk it, run it, but they're just outdoors. 20 minutes finishes and then we do a group stretch and we have an overview of what we just experienced. But the kids, I wanted them to learn the anatomy type of stretches, so I get them to.

To basically take turns calling out the stretches. And we do this in a circle. And it's, we've had families come and go and to come back again later. And there's also been a great crowd for [00:35:00] even parents that have separated. This is common ground, so they come out and they both participate on the field.

Oh, wow. Now they have, and then the parents go off to doing what they're doing afterwards. But the. Family type. So we do, our biggest draw is our Sunday evening and because the most show up, it's a nice way to start the school week. That

Chris Detzel: makes

Duncan Cragg: sense. And it's just the regular Woods Trail run. And so the idea is to keep everyone safe, but liability falls on the parents as well 'cause they're out there.

And so it's made, trying to make it as simple as possible. And now four years into it, it's it's evolved into something really neat. It's we are having a lot of schools that don't have sport. Bring their kids out during the summer and we having kids that are too intimidated by their track team come out.

That was, that's really what I wanted to get to. Looking at the discovery that I made when I was 14, where gave me a chance to do it all year round on my terms, helped me identify consistency and practicing that showed that I [00:36:00] had to be accountable for that. And so finding kids are. They crave to come out because if they can come out, they look for someone else to bring them out.

And that is really a cool thing when you have a child that says, Hey, can we figure out another way to get out there if you can't take us? And I'm get, that to me is a really cool compliment.

Chris Detzel: I love that man. You've really created a, something, a community that is a little bit different, but around running, and just around it just, again, it brings community. You're bringing parents together and the kids together and they're bonding with each other. They're hanging out with their kid a little bit. Kids are gonna be kids and they're gonna hang out with other kids. But so are we, hey.

And then they're finding common opportunities to say, Hey, if this kid's, my kids plays video games all day, I want to do, what do you do? And so they're doing those kinds of things. Yeah. Okay. This has been, go ahead. Sorry.

Duncan Cragg: This is, that's I felt like that was my contribution to society right there, coming over here and immigrating that yeah, that's the coolest thing I've done.

Chris Detzel: It is. Cool, man. Thanks for [00:37:00] coming on to another DFW running talk. This has been spectacular, Duncan. So if you haven't got shoes at Luke's, which. Most people have. There's you're the one, you're off Mockingbird in Dallas, that's the one you work at, but there's also one in Fort Worth. So you know, you can go to Luke's locker anywhere, in Dallas Fort Worth.

So it's a great place to obviously get your shoes in apparel and really appreciate dunking you coming on and telling your story. Really awesome. Hey, thanks Chris.