When Runners Get Hurt: Travis Dowd on Tibial Stress Reactions and Cross-Training

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

All right. Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel and today's special guest. And once again, second timer is Travis Dowd. Travis, how are you?

Travis Dowd: I'm doing good, Mr. Detzel. How are you? Oh

Chris Detzel: my God. Here we go, Mr. Detzel.

Travis Dowd: Sorry. I'm done. I'm pretty good. Good. How are you?

Chris Detzel: I love it, man. You're very respectful and I actually appreciate that about you, but you make me feel old when you do that, and I am older.

There's no doubt about it. I'll

Travis Dowd: tell you Chris, for the rest of the podcast.

Chris Detzel: Alright, perfect. Last time we spoke, you were fresh off a win in your very first marathon at Dallas Marathon. I always wanted to kinda get back with you and we spoke, I don't know, a month or two ago to get you back on, you mentioned you've been a little bit injured, maybe a lot injured, so I thought this would be a good podcast to talk about a little bit about injury.

What have you've been doing instead and, all of that kind of stuff. So how does that [00:01:00] sound? Absolutely.

Travis Dowd: Yeah. I think it's a really important topic. Something that I've struggled a lot with through college and a lot of my teammates have struggle with, and a lot of people that I know in the running community, like everyone, if you're a serious runner, like you're gonna struggle with injury at some point and it's important to learn how to work through it and keep yourself mentally and physically stable through it.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. What, so what happened first? You got a little bit injured and you've been injured for a little while. What's going on?

Travis Dowd: Yeah, so I think because it was my first marathon, I was not. Sure how to recover from it. Like I, I was a little bit lost in the training for it and I was making that up as I went, but I had advice there.

I think one thing that I was unsure about is how do you come back from marathons the week, the couple of days after my body was, I. Was pretty much in shambles. I was, walking one or two miles a day, but it was tough. Like people aren't lying when they talk about the feeling a couple of days after a marathon.

So I took a week fully off, which I meant I, that was the plan all along was take a week fully off. Then I was starting to get antsy after even just a week of taking off. [00:02:00] Actually, I think I did try to do one seven mile run, like on Katy Trail because I just I needed to, but that wasn't the best idea. My, everything was tight.

But then that next week I started to, I went back home to Austin for break and started to run a little bit with friends there. And I was doing, I was running every other day and then elliptical on the days when I wasn't running. And that felt fine. And then. Week after that I started to, I think I actually, I felt like I could.

Ramp my mileage back up from there, but I was trying to do it in split runs. So a lot of people now, in order to decrease the load on their body in order to be able to do higher mileage more sustainably, they'll split up their runs. So a lot of people will do six and six, so six miles in the morning, six miles in the afternoon.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. But mile run, this was only like two weeks in or so, or like after the marathon.

Travis Dowd: It was, this was the third week after the marathon, and so I was starting to just do six and six every day [00:03:00] and felt a little twinge. I thought it was. Soft tissue, and I hoped it was soft tissue, like in my calf area, but never really went away.

And so I just, I kept on running on it because why not? Because that's

Chris Detzel: what we do as runners. Yeah.

Travis Dowd: And so about, it's funny. So let's

Chris Detzel: stop there real quick because I, I think it's important, even somebody that has been running for a long time and somebody that knows, look, you've been running in high school and college hardcore.

You've had coaches and trainers and all these things, right? And. What, even what you know, is slightly went out the door because you love running so much, you're so used to it. You're like, oh, even though and to me, like you're a big, you're a beginner marathoner, right? Coming back from 26.2, you've never ran that fast for that long.

You've run fast for a long time, but not that long. Knowing look, we all need to rest. And especially as fast as you did it, but also as long as you did it, it's [00:04:00] not that long. Two hours in what? 26, 27 minutes. Still really great, but. You're just like all of us.

Travis Dowd: Yeah. No, it was, we all

Chris Detzel: learn. I

Travis Dowd: think I'm still being a marathoner, like I'm still going through that same process, and I completely agree with that. I think I was, I do love running and so it just so happened that I, my body, my mind felt fine, but my body was not ready. For it yet. Yeah.

Yeah. I think we all fall into that.

Chris Detzel: So what ha, so what'd you do then? Like you tweaked your

Travis Dowd: Yeah. Calf or what? So I thought it was my calf and I because I think I. That third week when I started to run, I felt okay at first. I went ahead and signed up for Cowtown because I've heard great things about that and I was really excited to run that and I had signed up for the half there.

And so I think because of that I was, I. Pushing my mileage a little bit quicker than I should have, and I should have ramped up a little bit slower. But turns out it wasn't a calf kept on hurting. My first workout back, I was doing a little treadmill tempo just to see how it [00:05:00] felt, and after that it was hurting pretty bad, and it started to throb at night and then, so I was like, okay, this might not be a muscle anymore.

That's when I was starting to being concern, started being concerned that it was bone, went and got an X-ray and it didn't show anything. But then the MRI did, and so I had a little tibial stress reaction. So the fact that the x-ray didn't show anything was good. It's a smaller stress reaction, but went ahead and took six weeks off because of that, from that MRI.

And then I since then have been slowly working back into it. So this is actually my second week where I'm slowly starting to run again. Feeling everything out.

Chris Detzel: How's that going? Like how's it feeling?

Travis Dowd: It hurts on and off, but it's not the, like I haven't felt it throbbing at rest, which is what I'm looking for.

I'm looking forward to either, either throbbing at rest or getting progressively worse throughout the run. Because I've had injuries in the past where it's hurt a little bit at the beginning, coming back. But luckily I've had trainers then that have said Hey. We're looking for like a trend in it hurting.

'cause it's gonna, if you haven't used a certain muscle group, or [00:06:00] like you favored a certain area for a certain amount of time, then it's gonna be a little bit tender at first when you come back. And so don't be, and you're also gonna be overly sensitive to that area. 'cause every single run, you're gonna be like, okay, does this specific part feel okay?

So I felt a little bit of that, but nothing systematic. So I'm just feeling it out day by day.

Chris Detzel: Are you just. Running slower and then less miles right now still, or just yes. Yeah, I'm

Travis Dowd: doing, the last week I did three runs of 30 minutes, and then this week I'm looking for five runs of 30 minutes, and I'm just slowly building out that way and just being very sensitive and cautious on.

That's good.

Chris Detzel: Look, you're actually being smart about it, so do my best. It sounds like you are, and what have you been doing since a lot of people just stop running. I don't know what to do, but I think the pre-show you, you mentioned that you were doing some other stuff.

Travis Dowd: Yes. So I think a lot of it for me, like I mentioned, it is running and the routine of it is a very mental, isn't very important for both my mental and physical health. And so I think finding a substitute. Was essential for me to be able [00:07:00] to not only keep my fitness, but also just allow me to continue working through med school.

Yeah. And so I was fortunate enough to have a really, a pretty nice bike at our student center that I've been using. And I was originally actually trying to do the art trainer, which is like an elliptical, but it. It's supposed to mimic the motion of running better. A lot of professional athletes like to use that, and, but that was bothering my tibia.

And so I dec I decided to go for the bike, which didn't hurt at all and I was using a kind of a rule of thumb that I've heard in the running community, which is 10 minutes of cross training equals one mile of easy running. And I wasn't bothering to do too many workouts. I was just trying to get the minutes in that zone two heart rate for as long as I could, just so I can at least maintain some of that aerobic base.

'cause that's the hardest to build over time. That takes the most time to build. So if I lose that, it's gonna take a lot longer to come back. I'm not worried about like the peak fitness that's gonna come when I. I'm back at full mileage and doing those harder workouts, but I, because of that 10 [00:08:00] minutes is one mile rule.

It's, it does take a lot of time. So I was doing one hour in the e in the morning, one hour in the afternoon every day, or not every day, I guess it was like four days a week I would do that and three days a week I was pretty intense.

Chris Detzel: I love it.

Travis Dowd: It was pretty intense. Yeah. I was originally aiming for 12 hours a week of cross training, but that just wasn't doable.

I was was not able to sustain that with my school schedule. So I was. I brought it down at 10 hours a week. So I'm basically trying to stay at, if you use that rule, roughly 60 miles a week of just that base training.

Chris Detzel: How, I guess you were saying like it's 10 minutes per mile, like when you train, but how fast were you running your miles in the first place, at a slow pace.

Travis Dowd: A lot of my zone two mileage is between. Depending on the day, like seven to seven 15 pace, seven minutes to seven 15 pace. But here I'm just looking at that heart rate, so I just have my Garmin on and I'm just making sure I stay around one 40 to one 50 heart rate.

Chris Detzel: So for your 30 minute runs that you've been doing lately, how fast are you running those?

Or are it a little bit slower than you normally would [00:09:00] or

Travis Dowd: They've been a little bit slower. I've also, I've had the privilege of being able to run with friends that kind of make sure that I stay slower because if I run by myself, then I just kinda get lost in my own thoughts. I go too fast, fast. I'm not in zone two anymore, but when I'm running with friends and talking like it's a lot more enjoyable too.

And I have, I think it varies anywhere from seven to eight minute pace now.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Travis Dowd: But I'm just kinda feeling it out. I will say that the biking did work because I do feel my heart rate is a. It's definitely a little bit higher than it would've been running the same pace earlier before I got hurt, but it's not considerably higher.

So I did lose some, but I feel pretty good about

Chris Detzel: working. We're all gonna lose it if a little bit, if, we get injured. But I applaud you for. One, I think it's just normal what you did and you went too much. You did too much too soon. I think that's normal. But two is you kinda backed off, went to the doctor, got an MRI and made a plan to say, okay, I'm gonna take six weeks off, but I'm just gonna get on the bike.

Focus in you had a plan and take it [00:10:00] better. You sounds like you still have a little bit of pain, we'll see what happens, in the future. Do you think, so when you look at future wise, are you. Thinking of a race, in a few months or. Longer or what, what's your thinking around that?

Travis Dowd: Originally my plan was to do grandma's marathon in June.

Chris Detzel: Uhhuh.

Travis Dowd: That's kinda what I had my sight set on, but for me, when I have a marathon on the books like that, it's that soon. I tend to push my recovery too quickly and prioritize getting fit for the race over getting healthy. And so I recently pulled out of that one officially just because I did not want to get in the way of my own recovery.

So right now I'm just focusing on getting healthy as quickly as possible, but in a safe manner. Obviously not rushing in any way. Love it. It's

Chris Detzel: not easy. I'm sure

Travis Dowd: It's tough. It's tough, but it's, it does become a lot easier when I am not thinking about something that I need to train for. So right now my big picture goal is Houston 2026.

Okay. I'm looking at that as. The marathon that I [00:11:00] really think I can run fast at sub two 20, possibly Olympic trial standard is what I'm looking for there. Wow. Depending on, obviously it depends on what my training looks like throughout the fall, but that's what I'm aiming for. And then as a prelude to that, I think Dallas works really well with Houston and that way time-wise, because the Dallas half is about.

Three weeks out from the Houston full, you'll do the half. Yeah, I

Chris Detzel: was about to say don't be doing the marathon, dude.

Travis Dowd: No, I'm not gonna, I'm not. I learned my lesson there. No, for not doing back to back.

Chris Detzel: That's good. I'll be interested to see how you do in the half. Do you have some potential goal there or,

Travis Dowd: No, I think I'm really just gonna see where my fitness is at.

I think I will have a full, like a concrete goal until probably. Early mid-November where I see where my fitness is at. But I think if I'm trying to hit sub two 20, I'm gonna wanna be close to 1 0 6, 1 0 7 and a half.

Chris Detzel: What's your best half? I don't even know.

Travis Dowd: Right now it's, right now it's 1 10 30, but that's, that was, I've only run one half and I was at tour four last year and it was pretty hot.

So I wanna, I feel like you're rookie dude. At. Sorry.

Chris Detzel: It's like you're super [00:12:00] fast rookie at running these long. I appreciate it distances, yeah. It's crazy. It's

Travis Dowd: been fun. It's been fun to figure out.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Yeah. There's not, there's five Ks and 10 Ks out there, so I'm surprised that you're not thinking about some of those.

I'm sure you're still at a. 15 something, once that once you get, better kind of condition there and feel better,

Travis Dowd: yes. Honestly, originally my race plan before I got hurt, I was starting to make it after Dallas. It's okay, here's what my race plan's gonna look like, assuming me, I'm not getting hurt.

And it went cow town and then cap 10 k. In about now actually I think it. Is this coming Sunday, I believe. So I was gonna try to run that, but obviously that's not happening now. I do wanna run that at some point though, and get some, which one is it? The cap capital 10,000. It's in Austin and it's a pretty big race and usually attracts some pretty fast athletes.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, it's nothing like, I'm sure that you get up on the line and you're like,

Travis Dowd: man, I wanna beat these

Chris Detzel: guys every one

Travis Dowd: of '

Chris Detzel: em, you

Travis Dowd: know? Yeah, no, because you have a

Chris Detzel: chance in general.

Travis Dowd: Yeah. If I'm not fully fit, I'm not gonna enter myself in a race because I [00:13:00] don't. I'd rather just train through it until I feel very confident going into unnecessarily stressed out.

I'm not feeling. As fit as I think I should be going into it. And that just mentally plays with you during the race too.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Look I'm just trying to get in the mind of, Travis here and what's going on. So that is interesting. You do put a lot of stress on yourself during these races 'cause you wanna do well, what, at the end of the day, like we're having fun with it.

You gotta allow yourself to, yeah, you wanna compete, but have fun with it, that's just why we do it. You mentioned the reason you do it is because. To get that mental aspect right. You're going through a lot of stressful kind of school stuff. You wanna be the best you can at that and let running be that outlet, yeah. But also compete, you have a chance to win a lot of these races, and I think that's okay, but I like your attitude to say, you know what? I'm gonna go in this race and just just do it as a training race fast, but not overly fast.

Travis Dowd: Yeah. Yeah. No, I think a lot of the.

Races that I schedule myself [00:14:00] for are I'm a very competitive person and I kind of channel that a lot of that into running, so that doesn't show in other parts of my life where it doesn't need to be showing I smart. Yeah. So I also use those races as just a way to focus my training because I think that, like you said, the training is the main part that.

Allows me to stay mentally stable and regimented my schedule day to day. And that's what I'm really trying to get out of this. But at the end of the day, having races to look forward to really make that really meaningful. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: It could unleash that. Competitive spirit every now and then, absolutely.

Why wouldn't you like even I'll go in hoping to, when I'm racing, racing, I wanna do my best. I'm gonna try to get a pr. Now I'm I upset. Not necessarily anymore. I used to. Because I'm, as you get older, you're like, I do this just for the fitness and the community and things like that but I still wanna do well, if I see somebody that generally beats me, but I'm close to beating them, I wanna beat 'em.

Like that's just the way it [00:15:00] is. And if you have a chance to get up on the line, you know you're probably gonna wanna win or at least beat somebody you know, you could potentially beat. I talked to, do you know his name? I forgot his name. He, do you run with completely Sloth? Yes, I do.

Okay. Do you know Matt Campbell? Oh yes I do. Yeah, he's awesome. We were talking about it on one of these podcasts, it's look, if you do well, I hope you do well. But I still wanna beat you, and if I don't, it's okay. I'm glad you had a great race kind of thing,

Travis Dowd: no, it's I think running with him is great too. He has a very similar mindset to me, I think and that, and I'm still learning a lot from him in terms of being a competitive racer and also a practicing physician. It's a tough balance and yeah, I'm not there yet. That's right. But I'm learning.

I I think Ru doing workouts with him. I've not quite a few workouts with him and it's. It is a really great mindset in terms of, it's a healthy competition always, and workouts always. I'm gonna try to hang with you and I want to beat you in this workout, but at the end of the day, we're just trying to push each other through each workout because it [00:16:00] is a lot less fun to do a workout like that, like a 10 mile tempo or something like that alone.

And then on race day, obviously all bets are off. But then as soon as you cross the finish line, like the endorphins and stuff after the race, like the cool downs with other competitors, it's great. I love it. That's one of my favorite parts of the sport for

Chris Detzel: sure. That's awesome. Are you thinking of like maybe in the summer doing a 5K, 10 K or anything like just a close ra, a race that's close by or something or?

Travis Dowd: I'm sure I'll do a couple of those. 'cause I'll be here over the summer and hopefully I'm hitting pretty high mileage over the summer and just being very consistent in that. That's the goal. I think I don't really, I'm not good at scheduling races lot for farther out. I think I. I need to get in the habit of that because for marathons, you can't just, you can't say, oh yeah, I just wanna run a marathon a month.

No, that's already sold out. And so I need to learn how to schedule further out. But right now, what I really like to do is just say, oh, I feel really fit right now. Let me go ahead and sign up for [00:17:00] this race. And yeah, you can do that on the

Chris Detzel: five Ks and stuff.

Travis Dowd: Yes, that's true.

Chris Detzel: You, you should, so I'm gonna be doing the it's called the Mambo Taxi Run Race.

It's a 5K. And literally like three or 4,000 people are in there, right? There's some good competitors in the 5K, but all it's a 5K race. It's a big party and at the end they have mambo, taxis and things like, it's a cool race. Fun. It's in the summer, it's in mid June, I think. Even if you come out and just let's just call it jog. It's fun. So think about it. I might push, I'll send you the link. I'm definitely

Travis Dowd: looking for Yeah, please send me the link. I would I'm looking, I'm definitely looking for a little races like that just to break up the monotony of training. And I like a lot of my friends that I know that are training for marathons will do 5K, 10 K stuff during.

The summer and spring months, just because it does break up training a little bit and it gives you a different focus so that you don't get burned out too easily. Looking forward to one specific marathon,

Chris Detzel: especially in the summer. It's not like you're gonna PR in one of those things, most likely.

If you do then maybe it's your first race or something, but [00:18:00] it's just gonna be hot as hell and just fun to hang out and just. Be around community of runners, like it's just, for whatever reason, five Ks are way more fun and I don't do a ton of them, usually I'm doing the half marathons or whatever, but they're just not a party, it's just kinda weird.

It's like you go to the 5K, everyone

Travis Dowd: has a lot more energy at the end of 'em too. If you're not doing like you're a marathon, I'm not trying to party after a marathon like that.

Chris Detzel: No, it's a good point. You'll be alright. Yeah. I'll send you, if you're interested I'll send you the link.

Travis Dowd: Yeah, please do.

But

Chris Detzel: there's some cool five Ks in the summer and stuff like that. There's like the, there's this one we're doing tonight. It's called White Rock. Something, I forgot what it is, but just a 5K, you hang out and go run a 5K with a bunch of people at night, at seven. On a Thursday, on

Travis Dowd: a Thursday night.

That's pretty cool. I like that.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, it's just Hey, let's go run a little fast, faster than usual and just hang out with our friends, that kind of thing. And again, they'll have a party afterwards and if you like beer and all that stuff, they'll have it. I don't drink a lot of beer anymore, but I.

They have food and all that kind of stuff. So I think five Ks are, like I said, [00:19:00] it's just a party. So you've got so you're kinda getting back on track, hopefully. It sounds like there's some progress, so that's exciting. And you're thinking about a race full marathon next year in Houston.

Love Houston. By the way, you've never run anything in Houston, right? Or Marathon Half.

Travis Dowd: I ran there in college, but I haven't run any races. So I'm very familiar with the course, have volunteered a couple of times before the marathon, but I never actually completed it myself.

Chris Detzel: That'd be fun. Can't wait to see how you do there.

I know Brent Whittle ran 'cause he ran the half or full, I forget the full, he was trying to, 'cause he just turned 40 and he was trying to think about, how close can he get two masters, so he did okay. But we'll see. Are you going to Boston next year?

Travis Dowd: Are you. I wanna do Boston at some point, and I think next, yeah, next year would probably end up being the year that I do it.

It just has to work. Mean you're qualified. Yes, but I just have to work. It has to work well with my rotations and everything. I don't know, like by then, I will be doing, I will be in my clinical rotations and so depending on what [00:20:00] rotation I'm on, I don't wanna force it when it's not there. Like I, I would want Boston to be a really good experience.

And to have time before to really rest and get ready for it and then time after to recover. So we'll see. I'm definitely gonna do it at some point.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. And I think that, maybe something that you said is, Hey, I'm in Houston, I'm looking at trying to get under two 20 potentially and maybe hit that, Olympic kind of thing.

And I. It's probably doable for you. I wouldn't have any doubt, but that way you'll know exactly where you are in the next few years to go after, a really good time in Boston. Be fun to say you're an elite marathoner at Boston, yeah. I dunno.

Travis Dowd: I think that is definitely part of the motivation as well. I wouldn't wanna run Boston right now with only the one marathon under my belt because 2 26 isn't gonna get me into any of those elite or sub elite fields at Boston. If I'm running Boston, I would wanna have at least a sub two 20 time that would allow me to get into those preferential entry corrals that would basically allow me to not.

Get caught in all the traffic at the beginning and run [00:21:00] against some very high caliber runners as well.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, man. Because I don't know how, if you've, I'm sure you've done that like in college and, it's a different kind of atmosphere and different feel, at that level. A lot of those guys are faster than you, and so how does that feel and how does that.

Push you to compete even bigger and better. You'll get that in Houston though. There's a lot. There's be a really fast people in Houston. Yeah, Houston. They'll be at your level. Houston, they usually

Travis Dowd: get like this year, I wanna say they got at least five or six people under at least the old standard.

We'll see. We'll see what the new standard is, but. What do you think it will be? It'll be good. I don't know. I hope it's not, I hope it's only like a one minute decrease. Right now it, it was two 18 for the last cycle for the Olympic trials, but this year I'm hoping it's only a drop of two 17 or a drop of two 16.

I don't know if we'll see. It's gonna be tough to get into that.

Chris Detzel: But we'll see where you are, man. No, no telling, how is it, is with school being so intense right now, and I don't really see that letting up for the next, what, couple years yeah. Not at all.

So how does that, go into your mindset of, [00:22:00] okay, I definitely have these lofty goals for running, but the main thing here is getting through school and doing well through school. How do you think about that?

Travis Dowd: I do think that if I was focused too much on running, if I was doing running and maybe some other job that I didn't really care about as much, I would get too focused on running, and that has come back to bite me.

In the past, my fifth year in college, I had a little bit less rigorous of a academic schedule, and while that was nice, I don't really, I'm not good at letting myself rest and just do nothing. And so I think a lot of that results in me over training. And thinking too much about running. And so I think being in med school provides a really good balance of me not thinking about running all the time, maybe doing more miles than I should, just because I have the time to, 'cause it's fun because I like to do it.

If I'm only limited to an hour and a half of running a day, then I'm not gonna overtrain. I'm also, maybe I'm not doing all the [00:23:00] rolling and recovery that I need to be doing because I'm studying or because I'm in the clinic or doing research or something like that. But it's something, it's things that I'm passionate about and that get my mind off of it for a little off of running for a little bit.

So that I am. Able to come back to it a little bit more refreshed. And so I think they compliment each other really nicely in that way.

Chris Detzel: You mentioned you got away to San Diego during our pre-show. What do you do for fun? What's the,

Travis Dowd: oh, it was great. I, so I think getting away like that is great for me.

I love my favorite or trips where I'm going to a national park or something, or some more remote area where I am forced to not think about. School or work or any of those things. And I also don't have access to good running because then it's okay, now I have to sit back and not do anything.

And, being there with friends, I was with there with a group of awesome friends that that really made it. Easy to let my mind wander and not get caught up in school or running or any of that. So I was, I was running a little bit on the beach. It was like, it was great. One of my friends put it really well, [00:24:00] actually it was, our runs were all along this boardwalk, right on the beach and it was basically a carbon copy of when you get on the treadmill and you do one of those like automated runs where you're just like running through the scenery.

It was basically that like you're running through all these imaginary people. That's pretty cool people and like running right through. It's great. But these are real

Chris Detzel: people, so Yes,

Travis Dowd: exactly. I made sure to dodge them. I made sure to dodge them in real life. That's

Chris Detzel: good.

Travis Dowd: But it was beautiful and did a lot of kayaking, a little bit of surfing.

That was my first time surfing, so that was fun and nice. Grateful to have had that opportunity to just reset for four days and come back, hopefully mentally and physically ready to. Ready to go again, both at school and in running.

Chris Detzel: That's awesome. See, you do get out a little bit and you still did some running.

Yes. But that's, you're not focused in on training per se. It's just going out, hanging out with friends and, you mentioned you, do you have a job too? You,

Travis Dowd: I don't have a specific, like I don't have a paid job, but I, it's more just outside of school. I also work in a clinic and do some research and that's it's related to school.

[00:25:00] So it's all affiliated with UT Southwestern. But it's, it provides good opportunities to improve the skillset that I'm going to need as a doctor outside of just learning about these different diseases and how to manage them.

Chris Detzel: What kind of doctor do you wanna be? What's that's your focus? I don't,

Travis Dowd: I don't know for sure yet.

I'm not in clinical rotations, and I think that'll be when I am able to truly zero in on something. Right now, I have a ranked order list and I list. Either exercise cardiology or pediatric cardiology. I think it aligns really well with my interests and my personality, and I am currently working with a physician that's in that area of work.

She's been an amazing mentor and I've also shattered her and loved what she does, so I could definitely see myself doing that. Another one would be physical medicine, rehabilitation, just because I think, again, that aligns really well with my values and what I. What I would, what I could see myself doing in terms of the patients that I'm caring for, kinds of the kinds of things that I'm [00:26:00] prescribing in terms of exercise, in terms of how to improve someone's lifestyle and the focus is really aligned with what I would wanna do there.

So those are the two that I'm, right now. We'll

Chris Detzel: see. What, when do you hope to make that decision? Like a year from now or?

Travis Dowd: Fortunately, we don't have to make the decision for sure until we're applying for our residency, which would be in my. Honestly, I don't know the exact timeline and that's something for further down the road.

Right now we're just focused on passing step, gotta get through it, which is basically like the first of our board exams. But I believe it would be end of third year, beginning of fourth year would be when I want to have cemented that. And so that's gonna be, 2027 is gonna be when I'm. So I have some time.

I have some

Chris Detzel: time. Yeah, you have time. Look, you've got a lot to learn and you're learning and you'll figure it out just as everybody else does. But no, I was just curious to, 'cause I don't know how all that goes. So basically you have a couple more years of school and then you go into residency?

Is that or And then, yes sir. So I'm in year now,

Travis Dowd: and then we have clinical rotations [00:27:00] through our second and third years. And then fourth year you can either do away rotations or elective. Rotations where you're, that would be the ideal situation is you, after the end of your prescribed rotations or required core rotations that everyone does, you have an idea of what you wanna do, and then you explore that more by doing rotations at other institutions in that specific area.

Or you're taking electives or clinical courses where you're doing more work in that area to make sure that's what you wanna do as you apply to residency in that fourth year. And then hopefully match to a residency at the end of your fourth year.

Chris Detzel: Cool. Do you plan on, I know we're not talking about running per se, it's Okay.

Do you plan on staying in Dallas or is it wherever it takes you?

Travis Dowd: I, Austin, whatever. It's definitely wherever it takes me. I could definitely see myself staying in Dallas. I love and obviously I. Running isn't the only motivation for that. But since this, this is a running podcast and running is one of the motivations for that.

I love the running community here, and I could definitely, I haven't gotten the opportunity to get super [00:28:00] involved in it just because at the beginning of my first year I was so focused on getting adjusted and then I finally started to get involved in it, started to run with a slot a little bit, and then I got hurt, and so now I'm out it again.

And so I would really like to continue to build relationships in this community. Get more runs in with people and there's great places to run here. People say that Dallas isn't a great place to run, which there are better cities out there having just gone to San Diego, which is probably one of them, but Right.

This is at the beach. That's different. Yeah. This is a beautiful place to run. Just went on Katy Trail this morning. Never gets old and I'm super grateful for that.

Chris Detzel: Look, I think and I think we've talked about this or I've talked about it several times with others, is Dallas is a great running community.

Literally the Dallas Fort Worth, is, there's so many. Fast runners. There's so many runners, period, right? There's literally over 30 or 40 groups in DFW groups, people that are running with 10, 20, 30, 80 people at a time. It's insane. And that was one of my reasons for doing this podcast, is bringing people like you on, that are [00:29:00] winners.

But, mainly it's, Hey, running is a lifestyle and we care about our health. We care about, those kinds of things. And to me, it's one of the things that you can do that is a very healthy thing. Yes, we run into injuries. Maybe we go too far sometimes with, doing too much, kinda like you mentioned, but you're not the only one, right?

We all do it, I see like these new runners get on and run. They're training for a marathon and all of a sudden, they're doing seven marathons in one year. And I'm like. Are you insane? I don't care how slow or whatever you're running that thing, it's just gonna end badly.

But we have to learn, we all get excited about these things and it's okay, but I to say all that I agree with you. DFW is awesome for the running community. And that's why we do, that's why I'm doing this, is to bring out people like you to do it. And such interesting stories. Look at you like, you're going through school, you know you're gonna be a doctor at some point.

Going through the struggles and fun and things like that, going on these nice trips, you're still trying to figure out the running piece. We all have our opportunities and times in our lives of why we [00:30:00] run, so I appreciate you telling your story again in a different way.

Travis Dowd: No I appreciate you doing this podcast too, because I completely agree.

I think. It's important to hear different perspectives. And honestly, just listening to your podcast, I've found people in the running community. I was like, dang, I didn't know that they existed. I really wanna get around with them sometimes. So yeah, definitely things to look forward to and a lot of people to meet.

Still super excited for that.

Chris Detzel: It's always people to meet, man. Like one of the reasons I did this was 'cause I wanted to meet people like you that I would probably never get a chance to run with. Because, speeds are different or whatever, but it's let's, we should do it, probably more like eight minute paces.

And that's fairly fast for me just to do a. Long run, but still, I would love to, but I think that the point is we're gonna do it together and I get to talk to people like you that are doing amazing things and that, I wouldn't get to necessarily talk to if I weren't gonna reach out to you to do this stuff.

Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Did I miss anything? Did you wanna bring anything up that I completely missed?

Travis Dowd: No, I don't think so. Just hoping that I can continue to progress [00:31:00] in the right direction. Who knows? You might look at my Strava a couple weeks and I'm flat lining again at zero, but we'll see.

Fingers crossed that doesn't happen.

Chris Detzel: You, the beauty about running is that, unfortunately we get injured, but you'll be back. You've got the mindset one way or another you'll be smart, and that's the key, is just be smart. Listen to the body. Stop whenever you gotta stop or.

Slow down, whatever, that's certainly a thing. Thanks everyone for tuning in to another TFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Tetzel. Don't forget to rate and review us. Travis, thanks again for coming on. Really do appreciate it,

Travis Dowd: sir. Thank you, Chris, for having me. It was a pleasure. All right.