Why We Never Run Alone: The White Rock Running Co-op Experience

DFW Running Talk: WRRC Interviews
===

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

Thank you everyone for tuning into another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Tetzel, and today we have the team of White Rock running co-op today. How's everybody doing? Chet, tell me how you're doing. I'm doing great. Awesome, Andy. Awesome.

Andy Wheatcroft: Absolutely fantastic. Thank you,

Chris Detzel: Craig. I'm doing great.

Craig Borkenhagen: Doing really

Chris Detzel: well.

Welcome. I'm Vivian.

Vivian Williams: It's Sunday, so I'm happy.

Chris Detzel: I always love my Friday, Saturdays and Sundays, Friday just because I have to work, but it's, Hey it's done Saturday and Sunday is great, but Andy is retired, so every day is like a Saturday and Sunday. It doesn't matter. So must be nice. Yeah, it's true.

Andy Wheatcroft: It is.

Chris Detzel: So we came together today because I thought, and the team thought it would be really fun to talk a little bit about White Rock running co-op, or the co-op or WRRC, however you see us and just talk a little bit about the club itself. And before I do though, I wanna try to [00:01:00] get a little bit of background of each, so you guys know, call it leadership team or the team that kind of.

Runs, the behind the scenes, runs in front of the scenes and all of those kinds of things. And so what we'll do is we'll get a little bit of background of each and then we'll go into when we run, what we're excited about and all of those kinds of things, and so I'm gonna start with, I'm gonna put somebody on the spot.

Chet Okay's, get you going.

Chet MacArthur: All right. So I guess, yeah, I'm Chet. I grew up in the Bay Area just outside of San Francisco. And then I moved down to Los Angeles for college where I went to UCLA. I lived there for a few years where I actually started running right after I graduated. And then just last year I moved to Dallas, so two years after school.

And then I've been here for about a year. And so I joined just shortly after I moved and have been running with them with the co-op ever since.

Chris Detzel: Awesome. And now you've run a marathon before or no?

Chet MacArthur: Yeah, I run three.

Chris Detzel: Oh, you've run three. Okay, great. Have you done a bunch of halves or

Chet MacArthur: No? I've only raced a marathon in a 5K distance.[00:02:00]

Chris Detzel: That's crazy. I think I would start off with a half.

Chet MacArthur: No I started off with the marathon 'cause my friend that I went to school with signed up for the Los Angeles Marathon. He's do you wanna do it? And I was like, sure. And then so I just signed up and then we did together.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. I think a lot of us have done that.

Just some friend talks you into doing something like that. And a lot of times we don't train properly and we just go run it. I've heard so many stories about that. That's how we get into it. So That's awesome. That was kind

Chet MacArthur: of me. I did a two and a half month training, got my watch when I showed up.

I was just all over the place. And then you just learn through each one how to do it.

Chris Detzel: I love it, Chen. I love it. And you show up a lot too. Both our Saturday runs in our Wednesday runs, right? Wednesday night. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And look, I don't always see you guys, and I'm starting to see you more 'cause I'm starting to show up more.

Saturday runs. Let's go with Vivian. Vivian, how are you?

Vivian Williams: I'm well.

Chris Detzel: Great, and I know that you've tell us a little bit about your quick hit journey, when you got into running and all that kinda stuff.

Vivian Williams: Yeah. I started running on a treadmill when I was 18. A lot of girls [00:03:00] probably do this where they run for weight loss, even though you're as thin as you can be.

So that's how I got into running and shortly after that I started running half marathons. So I think I'm up to five half marathons. Nice. Similar to Chet. I got into it because a friend told me. She was doing it, so I did it and that was her one and only race never ran again. And I have continued to run.

Chris Detzel: Didn't you run your first marathon this year?

Vivian Williams: I did. I ran the Irving marathon, which was yeah. Exciting though. I was injured and since then I have remained injured.

Chris Detzel: I've heard a lot of those stories too, Vivian, so you just gotta take care of yourself and you gotta rest and do all the PT and I think you are right.

Yeah. That's awesome. Craig.

Craig Borkenhagen: Yeah. So I first, like I've always run just like a little bit for exercise, like three, four miles. Yeah. Like here, through most of my teenage years up till now, did one half [00:04:00] marathon in undergrad on five weeks of actually training and actually following a plan, and then it fell off and did a couple more after undergrad.

Then maybe two or three years ago I was visiting a friend in Louisville and we were talking about the importance of setting like tangible goals for ourselves to always be working towards something like big. And I had always wanted to do a marathon, so that conversation pushed me to sign up for I think it was the Oklahoma City Marathon of the following year.

So that was like six or seven months away at that time, ended up getting injured and this was like a month. Month or two months into the training plan. So I was starting to get a little bit high miles on the Saturday runs. Anyways, fast forward a little bit. I moved to Dallas. I still hadn't run a marathon, so it was just like this major roadblock in my mind and my psyche, and so I signed up for the Dallas Marathon and found the White Rock running.

Co-op, I think just through either Googling or looking on Facebook for running groups. And that was like absolutely key to actually get me [00:05:00] literally across the finish line of my first marathon, which was this past, past December, the Dallas Marathon, and didn't know what I was gonna do after. Was I gonna continue running or what?

But honestly, like the community and just the structure that running gives me. Especially the community of White Rock Running Co-op have, yeah, be coming back like two or three times a week.

Chris Detzel: And I'm gonna come back to each one of you because I think it's a good idea is talk a little bit about Y-W-R-R-C, but before I do, welcome back Andy.

How are you?

Andy Wheatcroft: Hey, I'm great. Still great. Despite being just, let's not talk about that.

Chris Detzel: I think that's part of the journey, but we're not talking about journeys today. Yeah. So that just happens to all of us. So tell us a little bit, just quick hit, I know we've heard it before, but not on this particular call.

Andy Wheatcroft: The executive summary, I guess it's I'm a late in life runner. I was 50, 60 pounds heavy in this, used to high my. Double chin behind a goatee beard. So I decided to run for fitness and healthly and got into running and fundraising for as a mechanism [00:06:00] and a motivation tools.

I did the typicals probably about 13, 14 years ago. I got into running like in my late forties. I did a 10 K and then I did a half, and then. Our first marathon was in London in 2011 through a charity and which was great. We then moved to the US and I ran several more marathons, including the Cargo, New York Marine Corps and a couple of other core marathons and get running.

I think I'm up to 15 marathons now in total. And to Dallas three and a half years ago, which is how I fell in with the wide running group. And we'll come into this for sure but this group make it so easy to give back because it's given so much to me. So I. Took an hour out of my, my marathon time and managed to qualify for Boston.

Never thought I'd ever do that. And this year I've finished up my six stars in Tokyo. So Nice. That's my brief running history. One or two injuries here and there, a couple of surgeries. But here I am, when you're injured it feels like you're writing a country in Western song, 'cause everything goes to hell in a hand basket.

But but just [00:07:00] recovering at the minute and looking forward to. Getting back and kinda happy that I am injured when it's in the middle of the summer in Dallas. So that's my only goal because if you're gonna be injured,

Chris Detzel: this is the time to be injured and this is the time. So one of your injuries came from being on a horse it wasn't nec.

I know running was part of the injury, but then being on a horse falling off or whatever. So

Andy Wheatcroft: Yeah, cross training can be dangerous. Be careful out there.

Vivian Williams: Also injured from rollerblading. So the lesson here is that we should not be doing anything other than running.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, Vivian, definitely.

Andy Wheatcroft: No, definitely not pickleball.

Chris Detzel: No

Andy Wheatcroft: pickleball.

Chris Detzel: Definitely not. I thought about it. My job has a pickleball court. It's inside and I've never tried it and I thought maybe I should, and I was like, you know what? Yeah, I could get injured pretty easily, but Vivian quickly, how'd you get injured?

Vivian Williams: I started running when I was 18, so this injury that I've had, because I have three, this injury I've had over 10 years is the IT band syndrome, and then from my race day.

Right before my race stand onwards, it has been shin sp once [00:08:00] and then this rollerblading injury, unfortunately all happened at once is genic quad. So I banged at my knee so hard that my quad just stopped flexing or contracting, so it's better but not perfect.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. It comes in threes sometimes, hopefully not, for you it did.

Vivian so the other question before I get to the other question I wanna mention that there are two other. Leaders within WRC that aren't on today. So we have Nick and he couldn't make it today. And we also have Josh and he couldn't make it today either. So we'll make sure to get them on at some point.

We'll probably do this podcast again, and talk deeper about some other stuff. Just thought I would say that before we move forward quickly I'm pretty interested in. How, one, how you guys found WRC and what, why It's so interesting and I know Andy mentioned that, but and then you guys slightly mentioned it, but I wanna go a little bit more detail and I wanna go with Chet again.

We'll just go around the room again, if you [00:09:00] will, to kinda get. A little bit deeper there.

Chet MacArthur: Yeah, so I joined, as I mentioned earlier, about a year ago when I was looking to move to Dallas. I had moved for a job at the time and my boss, my previous boss had run with White Rock and I told her that I was, I just run a marathon.

It was just getting into running and she was like the best place to live for that. In Dallas is White Rock, and she was like, I actually went to this round club a few times. You should go. It was near where I was living at the time, so she recommended I go there. And so I just showed up one Wednesday and then after that I showed up a Saturday and then just made it my habit and it just really helped me meet people.

Moving here. I didn't really know anyone moving here and now I have this community that I see multiple times a week. So it's just something I look forward to every week now and I can use it to train for a race and just. I see my friends. Yeah, that's Michael.

Craig Borkenhagen: Yeah. Similar to Che, like when I moved here, I was looking for a group founded on Facebook, came to a Wednesday night run.

It was the first thing. But what I really like, what really impacted me about that and why I continued to come back was after like one or two times of going to this Wednesday night run, [00:10:00] I got invited to just hang out with people. I think Josh and Natalie both invited me to a, like a, these throwback band concert.

Nice. On Northern Greenville. I think it's the Granada Theater or something. Yeah. But this was like, I hadn't, I don't really know anybody and they're already inviting me to hang out, which I really appreciated. 'cause again, I just moved here, didn't know anybody. It's one thing I

Chris Detzel: love about Josh, man.

Yeah. He and Natalie are just very much of a connector and just, Hey, let's hang out. I love that. That's a great story. Keep going. Sorry.

Craig Borkenhagen: No that's really it. Just having a group that is that welcoming and that open and then being able to run next to the water. So for a long time I was living in the northeast and living in Cambridge, Massachusetts and loved running next to water there.

There's the Charles River. And so looking for as much of that as I could get. Coming here. So I obviously knew about white Rock Lake and wanted to run next to [00:11:00] that as much as possible, which given our name, we do pretty often.

Chris Detzel: We pretty much, that's all we do. We might meet, at a taco place and then run to the lake.

Yep. Dian, how'd you find White Rock running co-op and why you keep coming?

Vivian Williams: I found the group probably over. Five years ago I started following the group on Facebook and I was one of those creepy people that just followed the group and never came until I moved from the Dallas Design district or design district area over to Lakewood area, Greenville area where.

I live now with my husband, and I thought that meeting point for WRC is four minutes away. So that's how I got started. And I finished off my half marathon training with WRC two years ago. So that's how long I've been with the group. It was my first time ever running with people and I thought, why the heck would I run by myself ever again?

Exactly. Ever since then, running with the group, [00:12:00] this group only specifically is my preferred way of running.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. I love this group. It's, a lot of experienced runners and if you're not extremely experienced, like then you become pretty experienced because then you just get to feed off some of those people that have been running for a long time, whether it's five Ks, half marathons.

You have all kinds of really great people that can help you get through some of that as well. And hey, it's free. Yeah. So I think that's a good thing. Andy, how'd you find WRC and all of that.

Andy Wheatcroft: Yeah. So I. I moved here with my family in 21 early summer. From Peoria, Illinois of all places.

I guess you better come from somewhere. So I I literally found through Google and Facebook, WRRC. Two days after I landed, I think we were still living in a hotel and I needed to go for a run on the Saturday. I found, luckily I found WRC almost a day that I got here in, in Dallas a few years ago, and I just, like [00:13:00] everybody else has said, it's just I used to call it the cheers of the running world.

Which was funny when we went to dinner in Cheers in Boston that time. That was why I was, that was nice. Making a few jokes about that. But yeah, so you know where everybody knows your name and you're welcome from day one. And but like I, I just remember showing up on Saturday and there was about 50, 60 people going to run at 6:30 AM in the morning or something.

And because there, there was quite a large group. One thing we've not we'll touch on later is that we, obviously, we. As runners, I think a lot of us focus around the marathon, but not everybody there does that. There's a great spectrum of people that just run for fun, maybe do five, six k, maybe never do a race.

Maybe they're on 12, 12, 30 minute miles, maybe their run work. So we have that in our group. But we have this spectrum of people where, if it's 5K, 10 k, half marathon. And yes, we can center around the marathon a little bit, but we have this huge spectrum. So I remember when I showed up, the speech that we always do is welcome new runners in there.

And we asked them what they're looking for, [00:14:00] how far, how fast. And I got paired with a group and. At that time I was looking for about 1820 miles. 'cause I was deep into a schedule. They just paired me with a group that just happened to be doing 18, 20 miles. And not only did we touch the lake, I remember we rang down the Katy downtown and back.

So I got to run in Dallas my first weekend here as a stranger with a bunch of people that I got to know really quickly. And it was just like instant engagement. Just like Vivian said, I don't know why you would want to run any other way unless you have to. Not just the safety aspect, just the camaraderie and just three hours just fly by.

When you're running with people it's amazing. So I I thought, okay, I'm definitely doing this again. And the following weekend we still do this occasionally a bit less common now. It just so happened that the second weekend I met the group after this amazing experience.

On the first one, it was a run my hood Nicole's house and there was about, I dunno, it was mounted through a hundred people. Showed up at the, to Nicole who volunteered a house that Saturday morning [00:15:00] and we all did a potluck, so it's easy for the hosts and they provide the house in the pool and we, everybody brings everything else.

And we went for a run around a neighborhood and then we spent three hours in the pool just chilling out and hanging out. And I'm thinking. Sure there's no subscription for this club 'cause it's pretty amazing. So yeah and from that point, as I say I've just been hooked. I, I've as I mentioned, my six star journey hung up around qualifying for Boston and I came to Dallas thinking I'm never gonna do it.

I'm gonna get close, I'm gonna get injured. I'm just never gonna do it. Yeah. And then all of a sudden I'm running with dozens of people that just run Boston every year. And you think and they're all telling me you, you've got all the elements. You just need to sharpen up your training program.

Let me help you. Yeah. And I credit WRRC with my last three majors in particular, qualifying for Boston. I took an hour outta my running time, and it's because. If you meet in the group at 5:00 AM on a Tuesday, you show up. If you're running by yourself at 5:00 AM on Tuesday, you may not, you might get [00:16:00] distracted on the way out, have an extra cup of coffee cut the run short.

But if you're running so again I, i've over stayed my welcome with this question, but I just fell in love with the group straight away. The people in it, really welcoming. Some of the things we do are just amazing. Almost any training program that you wanna run, you'll find that somewhere on our group.

And four or five years later, I fell into being an admin at some point. And it's, I just great to give back the secret, under the Secrets of happiness. In life is spending most of your life getting something that you really want and value. And then the minute that you get it, giving it away.

And I think, running knowledge and experience is one of those examples. And

Chris Detzel: no, I was gonna ask you another question, but I think you answered that. Around some of the runs and things like that. And we'll come back to you around the end part because especially if we missed something around how you think.

But what I do wanna get to is the running schedule and how we meet and one thing I do think that we should think about bringing back at some point is the run my hood. 'cause Julie and Team did an amazing job of, bringing people [00:17:00] together in a big way like that.

And I think that really creates some bonding type of stuff and. I think there's some of that already going on Wednesdays nights, and we will talk about that in a minute, and there's a lot of that going on, but. To me, building community around running, but also creating friendships and things like that is what this group brings and has brought to me as well.

I'll talk quickly about my quick journey there, just because I haven't i've been running in the DDFW area for years, since basically 2014, and I started out with DRC for years and ran their club and things like that, but steered away from that over the last year and a half, two years.

And I always saw Julie out there. It was Julie that was doing different things. I don't know, like for whatever reason I just, I was like, what is this WRC? My wife always knew. She keeps up with all the clubs and things like that. I do now. More so than I ever have. But and I thought, you know what, why don't we go start running with them?

And she's yeah, let's do it. And so probably like a almost a year ago, probably not quite a year, we just started running and then just [00:18:00] being more consistent. Our Tuesday and Wednesday runs, we just jog over there from our house. So on Tuesday we go to the track and then Wednesday we run over to the hill.

So it's one, it's convenient and then started building relationships with folks like you guys and others. So that's and then decided to get more engaged and involved, you guys asked me to, I think Andy and Nick or somebody asked me to be more of a leader or. Admin, or I don't know, whatever we're calling it, but just more involved.

So I have, and when you ask me to do something, I go all out or I try to anyways, and I think that's important. And so I want this to be successful. And what, this group has been around since 2011 and really changed a lot of lives from a running standpoint and friendships. 'cause you meet a lot of people that you might not normally.

One thing I do wanna talk a little bit about and I'm gonna go into each day, but I'm gonna ask each person to talk about the days they go to and then. Why it's so important. So we'll do that. And for me I'll start it off. I go to the Tuesday, Wednesdays, Saturdays Saturday runs.

And so for me, Tuesday is really about the track workout. So we'll go [00:19:00] out to Lake Highlands High School. And do our own track workout. People just show up and you do your own thing. You can run with some folks from WRC or you can just do your own thing and we'll get together, take a picture afterwards.

Sometimes before I'll take some videos and then we'll meet at, on Wednesday morning we'll meet at do some Hills. What is that Moss Haven Elementary? Is that, I think that's

Andy Wheatcroft: where it's at. Yeah. The normal meeting plays. Yep.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. And those are the ones I run at. And then Saturday I try to, if I don't have a race or anything, then I'll do the WRRC.

Saturday runs to where, it's a little bit longer, seven miles. I think we put out a. A couple of maps and things like that on the web, the main site, and somebody else can talk more about that, but, and you find some folks to run with and a lot of times we collaborate with Pegasus and they show up and we'll eat some tacos afterwards and things.

And so those are the three I really focus on. Sometimes I'll do more or less, rarely less. Seem pretty consistent. I'm gonna ask Craig to talk a little bit about kind of the ones you go to and then the ones [00:20:00] that you really like and why, and what it's about.

Craig Borkenhagen: Yeah. I, real quick, I'll just say I keep on meaning to go to the Tuesday morning track and Wednesday morning.

Holy Hills haven't made it out yet, but I'm slowly shifting my schedule to where that's more in the realm of possibility. But like I said, what got me into the group. Was the Wednesday evening run. It's turned a social run mostly because we hang out afterwards, but honestly, the group hangs out after most of the runs.

But anyway, Wednesday evening, social run, we start from Lake House Bar and Grill at 7:00 PM year round. Right now it's a bit hot. But we still make it out there, still running, and then we'll just have an extra beer or two afterwards given the heat. But yeah I try to make that as often as I possibly can.

And then also really going to the Saturday morning run, which right now is at 6:00 AM and do my thing there typically 6, 7, 8 miles or so at the moment.

Chris Detzel: I was there this Saturday and I think four or five people were just, Craig, we're, can go do this thing after, after this, watch the [00:21:00] Cowboy game at two or three, whenever it was, and all these people, so you're pretty well known in, in, in that crowd.

So it was pretty cool to watch, I was impressed.

Craig Borkenhagen: It's just, it's showing up. I didn't really try to be friends with people. I did, but it's just. Through proximity, you're, you show up often enough and you start having conversations as you run. It's also a good way to make sure you're not running too fast and you get to know people.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's always nice when those kinds of things happen.

Chris Detzel: Vivian, what about you? Which ones do you go to? I know you're a little injured right now, but you're still in the past. We've gone to a bunch and do you like the best and stuff like that?

Vivian Williams: Yeah. Wednesday mornings and. Saturday mornings for the long run.

So Wednesday is Hill Day. I know a common saying in the group is Hills pay the bills. And I feel like adding those hills in my training made the biggest difference. For me personally, I remember running a race and I could see the pace group that I was with just slipping away from me as [00:22:00] they were going over a steep incline highway ramp.

I promised myself that would never happen to me again. And now every time I approach a hill, I think of WRC and I fly past everyone else and there's no better feeling. So there's a 5:20 AM loop, four miles, and I'll be honest, I sleep through that one, but I do make it through. To the second loop at 6:00 AM and then a two mile pull down, which is always nice.

And and then I joined for Saturdays with everyone else for a long run.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Did you ever find yourself having any tacos or anything Vivian on Saturdays or

Vivian Williams: tacos? Always right after a Saturday run. The best part is everyone hangs out right after in the parking lot, just sweaty. Talking. Yeah, about running, but other things too.

When you run with the same people over and over, you get to know each other a little bit about everyone's lives and you wanna see how everyone's doing after the work week.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, no I agree. I think it's cool to see at the 6:00 AM run on Saturdays when [00:23:00] we're done. For the most part, taco joint doesn't open until eight, and so a lot of us are there 30 minutes, 20 minutes before, and so we're just hanging out in the parking lot.

You know this one guy, Scott Manis yesterday, as a matter of fact. He brought all this water, right? And he was basically taking a shower right in the parking lot, pouring the water. I was like, what are you doing? And he's just taking a shower. And I was like, oh man, it's not working as well.

And so he just poured it all over him, I don't know if he had soap or anything, but I was like, all well, he goes, I just don't like to smell bad. I was like I don't like you smelling bad either. But it was interesting. A lot of people would just hang out there for.

Sometimes an hour, before they even go get tacos. So

Vivian Williams: it's a sight to see the parking lot on a Saturday morning. Okay. You would think that we were, at a farmer's market or something with everyone with their car trunks open for shade and towels on the ground and little little benches to sit on.

I ought to get one of those benches 'cause I always end up on the floor.

Andy Wheatcroft: Yeah, that's right. Super cheap. Go. Hey Chris, since you brought Scott Manny. So let me just pick on [00:24:00] that as a random example 'cause we could mention one of a hundred people that, that yeah. That are in our group.

But Scott he's somebody that's been with the group since 2011, I think forever. I think he's done maybe 50 marathons. I think he's decided that probably he should stop doing marathons fairly soon 'cause it's chewing his knees up. Scott was somebody that I mentioned early on and somebody that was always game if he came to run 16 and I mentioned I've got 20 on my plan.

He'd, oh, I'll run 20 with you then. And then we'd end up with four or five other people and we'd end up knocking out 20 on a Saturday or something. But just as an example of this group. And some of the fabulous people in it. I'm gonna pick on Scott as one. When Scott found out that I was having a proper go at my BQ hopping glass city right up by Detroit, just outside Toledo, Ohio, and.

He said I need to do that state anyway. I'll come with you. So Scott actually came with me as like a travel buddy and gave me a whole bunch of coaching and experience and stuff right up until [00:25:00] he, he told me that, with a black trash can and a Gatorade, if you are a boy, you can have a port-a-potty right at the start line, right to the gun goes off.

So that's one of my tips of the day, by the way, for the boys. But I didn't know that till then. And I qualified at Glass City. I've got a whole bunch of photos of me and Scott ringing the BQ bell and laughing away, as Craig mentioned, it doesn't take a lot of effort. It just takes showing up and running with people to make some really great friends.

This is the guy that's, again, I've been in Dallas less than four years and. I've got some of the greatest friends I've ever made through the group in the last four years. 'cause they're running. So just a Scott Manis story, one of many, but I could embarrass him with a few more. But that's probably one that just the kind of people that's in our group.

Scott's one of them, for example. Love that

Chris Detzel: Andy, that's really you bring them out, go to run with the community. And over time you really start building some friendships. And Chad, let's go to you, buddy.

Chet MacArthur: Yeah. Okay. So I mainly go to the Wednesday and Saturday runs. Yeah. And then I also will go to the Sunday runs when we loop the lake, depending if I [00:26:00] have more, like if I'm trained.

I'm gonna stop you there. I

Chris Detzel: saw you today, and you're going the opposite direction of where the group was going. I was like, what's going on Chet? Come on.

Chet MacArthur: I only ran four miles this morning. I was going out to brunch so I didn't have time. But usually if I'm like, need more miles, I always do the Sunday loop, but it hasn't been since like the spring.

But yeah. So Wednesday just messing with you bud. Yeah, I saw, I was like, I was leaving. I was like, I think I'm gonna see everyone. So I saw you. And then I saw Nick a few minutes afterwards, so yeah. And then, yeah, Saturdays as well. I usually run 6:00 AM if I'm training for something or not. It's just the go-to these days.

Chris Detzel: I remember when I first met you, it was I was running with Nick. It was probably a Sunday or something. Then all of a sudden, I don't know if you were running with us or whatever, ran into or whatever. And so that was probably. Six months ago or something like that. I don't know if you remember, but it was my first time meeting you yeah, I remember that.

Chet MacArthur: That was a Sunday. Yeah.

Chris Detzel: I think it was a Sunday. Any particular have you made some good friends since you've been here? And everybody else [00:27:00] has, so you know, I would love to hear some friends, stories,

Chet MacArthur: runners. Yeah. And I have the same story as Craig. I think after a few times I was just sitting in Taco Joy and then Natalie and Josh we're gonna watch.

Natalie, this is the loon at noon, so within a few times already got invited there and then Craig has inspired me to get more into golf. He's we've encouraged each other to go down that path, so him and I golf pretty regularly now, so it's been my go-to community now. And Vivin,

Chris Detzel: have you met anybody that that that you've connected with?

Vivian Williams: I love people, so yeah, I will talk to anybody that will talk to me. I'm lucky that I get to see you and Andy on Wednesdays so that you're pretty

Chris Detzel: lucky. That's true.

Vivian Williams: I am the lucky one. Yeah,

Chris Detzel: definitely.

Vivian Williams: No, I, I know on Wednesday mornings those hills are tough, but, seeing an Andy whip my butt in front of me and telling him like, come on, keep going.

That's motivating. Saturdays too there's a bigger crowd because it's the weekend people have the time yeah, [00:28:00] I have friends there. I'm thinking of Juan and Maria, who I frequently run with just a whole bunch of people. And then I love it inside Taco joint at the bar. You end up talking to people that you didn't get to run with that day, but still showed up.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. And again, we've said this before, it really truly builds community and that's what I love is. Look I go and talk to everybody and so for me it's pretty easy to, the Pegasus group is there. I'll start talking to them and, I'll start talking to everybody from, our group and just trying to build those relationships.

My only biggest opportunity is people's names. Like I'll see somebody like today I saw somebody that I know but I forgot their name. I was like, Hey, and he goes, Nathan. Yeah. But that's the opportunity is me trying to remember people's names. So sometimes, what did I miss?

Andy? I know some things that you might wanna bring up and that we might have missed. Yeah,

Andy Wheatcroft: So I guess, let me so my running week, let me capstone that then if you like. But before I, [00:29:00] I explain my running week with a group. I wanna let everybody who's listening to this know that this is a, normally the moic screaming of the spectrum.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, there are people that run with us that don't really run any races. There are people that only do 5K. There are people that do 12, 14 minute miles. So please don't let what I'm about to say put anybody off. Maybe it will encourage a few people. I don't know, but my.

Running week is like all of them. So in the last year I ran 2,800 miles, which was a PR for me. I ran four marathons including three majors. I paced the four hour group with DRC at Dallas last year. So I've had an awesome year after building the last three or four. One of the things I love about the group is my week, and I call it a virtual, it's not a virtual, it's an actual marathon schedule every week, and you can do as much, as little as this as you like, but.

If you were putting a marathon schedule together, you would basically do what we do in the weeks, on, as you mentioned, Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, we don't really have much organized, but 80% of your runs should be easier [00:30:00] runs anyway in a marathon schedule, our Facebook page, people will throw, Hey, I'm doing six miles tomorrow at.

BSC or chick

Chris Detzel: Cove is what that means, by the way.

Andy Wheatcroft: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So people all the time on those three days just post ad hoc things, so you can always find somebody to run with and on those three days. But basically it's Newsday track and we show up, we do a couple miles of warmup, and then we're at the track for an hour and a quarter and people come and do whatever they like.

But if Nick and I are running there, we generally fall into. The same stupid old schedule, pyramid intervals and what have you, which is really great because under the track you should suffer. And suffering alone is really hard. But suffering and taking the piss out of a friend of yours who's suffering slightly more than you are is a lot of fun.

So that gets us through track. So again, if you were, putting a schedule to you, you would do track once a week. We do that Tuesday and there's safety in numbers, and it's posted on our Facebook page. Hills Pay the Bills. As Vivian said, Nick developed that I think from a previous run, but it's two laps of four miles.

They [00:31:00] go on the side of a subdivision that's half a mile up, half a mile down, half a mile up, half a mile down. It adds up to two and some people show up and do a pre loop. Some of the crazy Pegasus people that run with us, some people do three loops on a Wednesday. Some people knock out 12 plus miles on a Wednesday, but you show up and do whatever you like.

Some people show up and just do the top half of the loops. And do an easier section. But again, we, all of our runs are variable. Thursdays. I often pick up a run with Pegasus and do their tempo run at 5:00 AM which is a lot of fun 'cause we overlap from time to time. And then Saturday, it just depends where I'm on my mal marathon schedule.

We show, we do. 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 22. I've had friends at WRRC again, like I said with Scott, Ellen Ogburn for example, and Andrea Hodgson Baldwin when I was BQ training. One Saturday I just showed up randomly said, Hey, I'll run with you guys for as far as you're gonna go, but I might just tax some miles on at the end 'cause I need 24 today.

[00:32:00] Yeah, Andrea and Scott said I'll do 24 with you because we've got people with that sort of experience and ability in the group. You don't have to find me doing

Chris Detzel: 24 with you, but anyways,

Andy Wheatcroft: go ahead. Anyway. Yeah so I got drilled into that so sad. Saturdays a really cool, as the guys have said, it's a, it's our main social group.

It's a bigger group. We combine sometimes and we end it with it, with, some tailgating and or some tacos in taco joint afterwards. It's awesome. And then often through those groups you hook up with other people to run in the week and so on, and that's great. And then on Sunday.

Either Nick or I will generally host our Sunday recovery loop, which is a lake loop, and so typically a nine mile loop. Some people do the bigger one at 10. Yeah. Some people show up for six and just do the first three out and back, and so you do what you need to do. But it is based around a lake loop, which is nice to do at sunrise on Sunday, which is nice to do.

We stop every three miles for water in a chat and to let people catch up. A variety of [00:33:00] paces is not a problem to accommodate. Sometimes afterwards we go for breakfast if people have time or a coffee. And it's easy. It's as long as we're moving forward, it counts as a pace. So anywhere from, some people do a tempo or whatever if they've missed another run.

But generally it's like a 9 30, 10 minute mile kind of gig, plus or minus. And again, we stop every three miles so it doesn't matter 'cause we catch up, catch up with people and so on.

Chris Detzel: Doing all of that, by the way, lately. Yeah. Pep has been coming. I don't know if has you guys know Peppi Deer Runner, but and he's there on Sundays and he'll bring a little, let's just call it a bar of, treats.

Yeah. Oh, that's an extra, not always, but

Andy Wheatcroft: lately. That's a great answer. So I guess my point Chris was as you've seen even from the committee here, that. Whether you're doing 15, 20 miles as a hobby runner, there's a few of these runs that you can just drop into and you will always be welcome and will always find a way to make it work.

And sadly, by the way, we also take turns at dropping water coolers off just to, to help that out as well. But but if, like me, and sadly, I'm generally [00:34:00] tailgating Nick, if you are on a quest to do 60, 70 miles a week, guess what? You can still do that with our group. Because you'll be running with people that have.

I've done all 50 states. You'll be running with people that have got six stars. You'll be running with people that have done, have Rock one hundreds. You'll be running with people that have run internationally. And as a result of that, as a result of my WRRC running week and with the people that I run with, I've been to Tokyo early this year.

I went to Berlin last year and I. Tell no lie, but you often find that somebody creates like a little mini page in Berlin. There is. I knew 28 people that were going, 22 of which were from the group. And we actually found a pub and we had a big party in Berlin afterwards, in Tokyo, there was a dozen or more people that I knew just happened to be going to Tokyo as well.

When you, you have that sort of community, I would guess that you could go to any marathon, any major marathon, [00:35:00] anywhere in the US and there'll probably be one or two at least, maybe 20 or 30. People that you know from the group that also will just by happenstance be there. So it's a support group, not just in Dallas, but it's, it can be a support group wherever you're wrong in literally, we blocked out a whole bar in Berlin and we got very drunk.

It was awesome.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Andy, I love how you brought in. That piece of the community. And it's so important because, it's true. And that's how, WRRC is and that's the what we wanna continue to bring to everyone. And so before we wrap up, is there anything else that we missed or that you guys were like, oh my God.

Go ahead, Vivian.

Vivian Williams: Yeah Andy just mentioned, he said safety in numbers. I, as a woman, as a female, do not feel comfortable running by myself. We live in a very large city and I just feel more comfortable running with people, but also in, in the winter months when [00:36:00] it's dark. I do like to run with men and I feel safer when I have.

You all in my group, nobody's going to try to kidnap me when Craig is right next to me. But I do see women posting in Facebook groups asking, where could I run safely? And there really is no good answer. I don't think there are too many places that you could run safely alone. So I always selfishly say, come on with WRRC.

But if not, then run with another group, somebody. But don't run alone. And, on Father's Day, I posted a thank you in our we RC group, just thanking the men in the group for being with the, with us, and keeping us safe. At least I feel safer.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. I think Chet by the way, is pretty buff too, so he could probably, take care of some people too, just in case.

So

Chet MacArthur: that's only

Vivian Williams: like Josh,

Chet MacArthur: the shops,

Vivian Williams: I'm sure all of you would protect me.

Chris Detzel: For sure. Great.

Craig Borkenhagen: Anything

Vivian Williams: else?

Craig Borkenhagen: Go ahead. Mentioned a couple of his longer runs, like 20, 22 miles sometimes. And we were also [00:37:00] talking before the recording started, one of his long runs happened like right after moving to Dallas and found White Rock and ran like through downtown and everything.

And to me that brings up a couple interesting things of like just some of the longer run routes, longer routes that we do. Do go through downtown and come back up through Katy Trail. Just a great way to get to know the city on foot. And then when I was doing some of those training for the Dallas Marathon last December, just having that extended time with people like Erasmo, especially as one of my good friends at the group, and then Luigi, we did.

So many training runs together that we became really close friends and they actually live pretty close to me, so I'll do some kind of outside of WRC runs with them like, Hey, you wanna go run like two miles tomorrow morning? Do stuff like that, hang out. I got dinner with Erasmo a couple nights ago, the club has given me a great view of the city. It's given me friends that I have great conversations with on those runs. And then just the last point I forgot to mention is on those runs, we do have great conversation, but then [00:38:00] there's plenty of time to run silently too. I know some people don't like to necessarily talk, or maybe you're breathing too hard to be able to talk.

There's just something for everyone. On these runs. So even if you're running with somebody, even if you're not talking, just having somebody side by side with you, going through the same thing has been a really wonderful thing for me.

Chris Detzel: That's awesome.

Andy Wheatcroft: Yeah. Actually, I did wanna mention one other thing.

So while running, Coke for me have made a number of my dreams come true, obviously Boston being one of them. I think we mentioned on that last Facebook, that last podcast, sorry, Chris, that my Facebook profile used to be. X tub of blubber. Chasing the unicorn was my Facebook handle for a decade, but when I started running, I literally could not run a hundred yards without stopping and throwing up at the side of the road.

And I won't do that story again. We've done that before, but I eventually could run two miles without throwing up. So that's where I started from. And so this whole thing of not just qualifying for Boston, I knew I was gonna qualify for [00:39:00] Boston before I crossed the start line. Because of, running with people that were more experienced with me, that just gave me the confidence to execute the plan's.

Negative split. For those of you that haven't run a marathon, the confidence, the negative split is a huge watershed to cross, and it's the only way that you'll succeed. But it's really scary to leave something in the tank for the end of a 26 mile run. You get that too. One of my life dreams was to pace a four hour marathon group.

'cause I remember crying when I broke four hours in Chicago. I didn't do it in London, I did it in Chicago. 'cause it for me, that was my definition of being quite a real runner. And I remember it was a huge personal milestone. And it doesn't matter what your milestone is, I guess the. The marathon's only 26.2 miles.

'cause of the 1908 Olympics in the uk. Everybody's marathon is like everybody's Everest. It's as long as you want it to be, but for me. Being able to actually give back and pace confidently, pace a four hour group was a dream I had, but I [00:40:00] spent 10 years trying to qualify for Boston and failing horribly, and so I could never waste a marathon on pacing.

And when I finally got that done, the other thing that the group helped me get was, and something, by the way for viewers of this WRRC, huge group, 5,000 people, members, plus members on Facebook. We've been around a long time, so we know a lot of the other groups. And the community in Dallas.

So we have a lot of contacts with, say for example the Dallas Marathon Organizing Committee. A lot of us go to Logan for back, the CEO of the of the so we're able to get some of our more experience runners in into pacing gigs and I managed to get in the four hour group for the BMW Dallas Marathon next year.

And I paced a four hour group and of all the marathons that I'm running, yes, the six stars were great. And I can tell you about my every step of my BQ run and every mile and what I was feeling. I can remember it like just as though it was yesterday, but in my heart that, that four hour run with a [00:41:00] pacing stick, helping some new marathon runners, first time marathon runners, people trying to PR their four hour dream.

Taking a dozen of those marathon runners across the finish line in Dallas in three hours, 59 and 55 seconds or better was just the. Highlight in my running career. If I'm being, if I'm being honest, I would not have done that without this group. So again we do all sorts of things, but one of those things, if you're interested in it is pacing.

It's just, it's a great day. But but that's my four hour story. I've paced still there, two hour marathon hard marathons and stuff, but my. Yeah, the BQ unlocked for me doing my six stars, but it also unlocked me chilling out a little bit from pacing a marathon. And it was, again, all the marathons I've run.

It's by far my best experience. So just wanted to mention that too.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I remember the last marathon I did, I. Cried because I was hurting so bad and I couldn't wait till I was done. And I just true, never did one [00:42:00] again. And I was like, screw this. So I've done a lot of half marathons and pacing and things like that.

Chet, anything on your end?

Chet MacArthur: The only thing I was gonna add is in addition to community, it also just, the club kind of changed my perspective on running. I think the most I had done was like 40 some miles in a week, and then I'd only met someone, I'd done maybe one or two marathons that come here in the first run.

It's I think I met Nick and he was like, I run like 30, 40 marathons, done ultra marathons. And I was like thinking he was running like 70, 80 miles a week. And I was like, I will never get there. And then a few months later, I'm running 67 miles a week and it just. It completely changed my perspective of running in a very short time.

So I thought that was pretty cool as well.

Chris Detzel: I love that. It's a great story. Guys, thank you so much for coming on and telling the story of WRRC and what it meant to you. And we hope to bring some of that joy to the others within Dallas and the community. Make sure everyone that you come, if you go to the, what is it?

White Rock running co-op, Facebook we have a whole group of like 6,000, not 5,000 people in that group. [00:43:00] We have a, an events page that we put all the events and so you can't get lost. You'll know exactly where to go. And we also have an Instagram account. It's the WRC. So check us out. We're always posting, we're always doing stuff there, and, but we're always getting together and that's what makes this place so special.

We love it. Thank you for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk. Don't forget to subscribe to our substack newsletter at ~sub shoot ~dfw running talk.substack.com. Again, thank you everyone for tuning in. Thank you all for coming. I'm Chris Detzel and we will talk to you next time.

Andy Wheatcroft: Thanks, Chris.

Awesome.