Third Time's the Charm: Jodi Jordan's Boston Marathon Journey

DFW Running Talk: Jodi Jordan
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[00:00:00] All right. Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Stetl and today's special guest is Jody Jordan. Jody, how's it going? Doing great. Thank you. Welcome back. Yes. Can I ha this is gonna be fun. So we are at the Park Plaza in Boston, the day before the Boston Marathon. And Jody, you are running this for the third time?

That's right. Perfect. Great. So what I wanna talk about today is a little bit about your journey into running, but mostly about your Boston Marathon. So how'd you get started into running? What was the. The beginning was when I was partying a lot. And when I say partying not crazy partying.

Yep. Yeah. Going out a little bit too much on the weekdays. Thursday night, Friday nights, I have a lot of. Fun. Decided I needed to get in shape and so I started running with Riot, which is now Rogue running, but at the time was running Institute of Texas. Okay. And I joined their half marathon program. Is that in Dallas, like way back?

Yes. 10, 11, 12 ish. Wow. Okay. Time. And so signed up for a half. My first half was the Allstate [00:01:00] 13.1 out of like at and t performing arts center. I think it was only around for one or two years. That's pretty impressive that you remember that. So when was your first marathon? When did you First marathon was Oklahoma City Uhhuh in 2012.

It was, it did not go well. It hurt a lot and the next few didn't go very well either. Yep. And I would say it wasn't until I got a dietician in 2015 that I ran the St. George. Marathon. And at the time I ran a 3 23 and qualified for Boston for the first time in 2015. Okay. So for your first Boston then, that's kinda what we'll talk about is were you excited about it or did you know a lot about Boston?

What was your mindset? 'cause some people don't even know that one. In 2015 I qualified and then I got pregnant, but I didn't run. And at the time I don't, they may have had a deferral for pregnancies. I have no idea. I didn't look into it. Yeah. And so I just didn't run it. And then. Continue to run when I had kids, but much, much slower.

Yeah. And it [00:02:00] wasn't until post COVID in. 2022 that I ran a 3 0 3 at St. George and qualified and then did the 22. No, but I don't know what year 23 Merri 2022 was my first actual in-person Boston. Did you run with a group back then, or was it just a lone while there? What did that look like?

Yes. So at coming out of COVID I started running with Rogue Running, which then transformed into running with Train Pegasus. Okay. And ran with train Pegasus for both my 2022 and 2023. Boston Marathons. So talk about that first Boston Marathon. What was that like? It was not, I thought there may be a lot of hype around it.

Yeah. There it was, it lived up to its expectations for me. I had never done a major. Yeah. So I had It's your first No. Yeah. No. Idea. Going from something like a St. George to Boston is, they're both equally beautiful. Yeah. St. George, you're by yourself. You're on the road, you hear your feet.

Yeah. And then with Boston, you hear just the crowd roaring. So it was incredible. Yeah. So the first [00:03:00] Boston was just. Absolutely out of, blew my mind. Blew my mind. For those that have never been to like Boston on Boston Marathon weekend, it is extremely exciting. It's so packed, but there's like popups.

There's just different things there, that is, is really amazing and I agree. The hike. I've never even run, with Boston Marathon, my wife obviously has done it several times but just seeing the runners, seeing people like you do it and excitement was, has been really cool. And when you kinda look at how'd you do that first person, by the way?

I did great. I went from, I think if my qualifying time was a 3 0 3 and I think I ran it in a 3 1 2. I was able to improve quite a bit. We had decent weather. It was just, it was incredible. And my. 22 and my 23 splits. I just pulled these up recently to remember the course. Yeah.

Were pretty much identical. My 23 was a three flat, but the splits were really similar. That's, you're a very consistent runner at the same pace, for the most part. That's pretty impressive. Now what's your best [00:04:00] marathon? Cowtown. Wow. Cowtown the 2 57. That was last year. But I like hills, so I really, I like hills.

I like the variation in, in, in ground. Yeah. At variation. That makes sense though to me. I like it. I like it. So buses are really a good course for you then All. You might as well talk about your second one. Was it, was there any difference between that or what's the, I know you said you were in three hours, so Yeah, that one was my husband had some health issues and so I didn't know if I was gonna be able to do it and made a last minute decision.

He was we had some, he had some very serious health conditions. He's wonderful now, but I. Got on a plane on Sunday morning and I came back on a Monday because he had just gotten outta the hospital. So the whole experience you left him in the hospital? I, he had just gotten home. Oh, okay. Just gotten home.

Okay. Alright. He was home, but yeah. Fair calling. Reinforcements my sister. That's good. Good. It was a blur and it was just one of those, I've met him once and super nice guy. [00:05:00] Really liked him a lot all right. So now that you're here for your third Boston marathon, what is it like, what are you feeling?

Tomorrow is supposedly great weather, so that's exciting. Just tell me, kinda walk me through some of that and maybe a little bit about your training that, after you felt good, what's been going on? I feel really good. I don't really feel like I'm running a marathon tomorrow.

Okay. It's like I'm here in Dallas, hanging out with friends. Yeah. Just with much better scenery. So I don't know that I've really, I don't know that it's really dawned on me that I'm gonna wake up, get on a bus, and then get on another bus and then go and run hard for hopefully three hours. But God willing, so I'm just going through the motions.

Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah. And just excited to hit that euphoria. Let my brain go. I think that's a possibility too, because of the weather. Yeah. It's gonna be what, 40 degrees or, chilly at first, but. Perfect running weather. Perfect. So do you run, do you like to run in cool weather?

Okay, do very much. How has the training been going? What's that look like? [00:06:00] Training's been really good. Mileage has been good. I do lower mileage. I think my peaks are like around 50, 55 miles a week. Okay. I swim and I cycle every week as well. Good. Which allows me to keep the mileage low.

And I think also just not feeling like I'm going to do this tomorrow, I've been able to stay injury free. Yeah. And not push too hard. Yeah. So I don't know that I'm in PR shape tomorrow. But I feel good and I'm not hurt. And at 41, that's a, that's a win in itself. No, I think that's a win.

So training's been good. A lot of hard workouts. Weather has been great. I think this spring for us. Yeah. A little humid. A little muggy. But it hasn't been horrible. That's true. It's getting, it's starting to get hot in Dallas now, but yeah. Is there anything specific about Boston? Maybe it's the race or the atmosphere or, I don't know, something that, a story that you might have over the last.

Few years that is interesting. Or, my favorite thing about Boston both years. Yeah. There's this section where kids are jumping on trampolines. Oh really? I haven't heard this. So [00:07:00] I, all the roads are shut down. Some of these people can't get outta their homes for hours. That's right. So I guess the neighbors, the moms, the dads have decided we need to get our kids some movement.

So they just roll out these little bitty trampolines. And you're just running, kids are just bouncing up and down on trampolines. Yeah. It just for some reason stands out to me. Emily. Yeah. Just the ability for the community to come together and be inconvenienced. Pretty solidly for an entire day and make the best of it.

It's a beautiful thing, the way the community comes together. See, ask that question because most of the time I get something a little bit different. I've never heard, you've heard of the Scream Tunnel and all these things, but I've never heard that, so that was really cool. It makes me, any of my kids Yeah, of course.

And what they would do. Yeah, it's very fun. And I am thankful for the, like all of these towns that come out along the way and let us take over their. They're streets for such a long period of time. That's pretty cool. Pretty awesome. Yeah. So when you think of, what, so just ending here, but what is [00:08:00] it that advice or thoughts around qualifying and things like that you might have for somebody listening that might be interested or just maybe something we missed?

Third one. I have lots of things swirling through my head about that. I would say you really wanna qualify and I would say it's not that serious. Exactly. I would say it's not that it's an amazing thing to do, but don't hang your hat on this one specific thing. Race. Yeah. Enjoy the time with your friends training.

Yeah. I think training with friends is the most incredible. Thing we have, but don't kill yourself trying to do it because that's when it's not fun anymore. And then, yeah, who knows, we could get here and not be able to run 'cause you're hurt. That could be terrible advice. I don't know.

That's a negative way to see it at the end, but No, I'm just, yeah, but just don't kill yourself. No I like the advice because, I think that for the most part, none of us are professional athletes, and we wanna run faster and wanna do and that's certainly encouraged.

You've run some really fast times. You're a very consistent runner and you know that's something and it'd be fun to see you [00:09:00] do some breakthrough stuff at some point soon. Yeah, I think you will. Sometimes it just takes that consistency and then there's that breakthrough eventually.

But running with community, like you said, you run with trained Pegasus, you actually have a really great Yep. And who's your coach? Matt Campbell is my coach. Yep. Yep. Great guy. Serious runner really fast and he does some really good things for the community as well. And Jody, this has been really great.

Really appreciate you coming on. Thanks everyone for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris s Tetzel. Go to DFW running talk.subec.com for our newsletter. Until then, Jody, thanks so much.