“I've heard over and over that you have to respect the distance. I kind of understood that, but you need to experience it to have respect for it and the emotional waves that you go through during it. I had heard that and it made sense to me, but the true understanding of that hit later. That was humbling a little bit. It’s not an easy race. You can't fake a marathon.”

My guest for today's episode is Kylie Mantz. If that name sounds familiar, yes, she is the wife of CITIUS MAG Podcast regular and U.S. marathon record holder Conner Mantz. But beyond that, Kylie is coming off a year in which she walked on to BYU's track team and can call herself a marathoner now after making her debut just a couple days ago with a strong 2:43 victory at the Two Cities Marathon in Fresno, California.

Kylie didn't run much in high school. In fact, she only started running consistently in the last two years or so. At first, it was just to understand her husband's world and then because she realized that she could belong in it. Fast forward to this year and she's raced in a BYU singlet, trained under coach Diljeet Taylor, and ran 34:57 for 10,000m on the track. Then after that, she's taken super well to the roads all while wrapping up her degree in elementary education.

What I love about this conversation is that her path is unconventional and refreshingly honest. She learned the sport from scratch with the occasional lessons from Conner and then found the confidence and spark to chase the U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier in the marathon. That's 2:37. She's proving that it's never too late to start and to dream big.

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Host: Chris Chavez | ⁠⁠@chris_j_chavez on Instagram⁠

Guests: Kylie Mantz | @kyliehmantz on Instagram + Conner Mantz | @connermantz on Instagram

Produced by: Jasmine Fehr | ⁠⁠⁠@jasminefehr on Instagram⁠⁠⁠

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