hello and welcome to gotta run with will i'm gail kislev events and i will be your host for this segment of the show my special guest today is julian adams  chilean how are you today good thank you for your show you welcome did you ride your bike here today i did julian is not only a former elite runner and i'll tell you about her history eighty she came in nd to the legendary credit vite in the one thousand nine hundred and seventy nine new york city marathon as a young twenty four year old when that story comes up i was very impressed when i st heard it and i asked the course of twenty seven years sometimes competing in ten marathons a year at that high level many of them were under three hours she showed brilliant longevity and highly accomplished career so chilian let's talk about what got you started in that the last career you told me once during an interview long ago from marathon and the yawned that you were a tomboy growing up in england tell us about that time well i grew up in england and i actually i did dancing and swimming as a child lies about eleven and twelve but my my best my best friend she suggested i started try running with her and we joined a club and joined the club i just enjoyed it lots did lots of different events because  we had we ran one hundred meters the two hundred the high jump the long jump all those different events and not all that in the same day but now you also told me that your father was a huge influence in you wire my feet was at the front and so the st pair of shoes i was using to run sprinting were his old running shoes and that was mostly because he didn't think i would stick  at that time in cross country races and in the track and field races yes but in road races no i was probably often the only woman in a race maybe two or three sometimes a few more but it was not very popular so from the age of twelve you started a running career in a way yes i raised twelve i did races on the track and i did road relays and cross country races but it wasn't until i came to america as an au pair in one thousand nine hundred and eighty six that i started doing longer races so let's talk about what brought you to actually philadelphia or was it the same girlfriend who got you into running no in fact it was a different the girlfriend who got me into running she moved to cornwall which is a different part of england i'm still in touch with her but it was a different girlfriend who i met at the local club  they had different family friends who also need to do pair so that was where i came in and i came to america to philadelphia so it wasn't something that you really wanted to do was it an opportunity or just well i not why no that was more that over the situation i apply for jobs in england and i didn't find something and then this chance came up to come to america and so i jumped at it so are you eighteen or twenty one when i want to get out of college so much older oh yes so you come to philadelphia st times stepping down on u s soil yes and how did you get into running in philadelphia who i don't really remember it's a long time ago and i think i met a couple of other runners who lives in philadelphia and so i just started doing this every weekend every saturday or sunday race scene or just casual rate racing the i was running casually training every day the springtime when i had st marathon yes i had to i had arrived in on halloween the previous year and so been living in philadelphia six months and i remember the week before the penn relays marathon i went up to boston to watch the boston marathon and we had some friends who were running in it just to see what a marathon was like yes and i hadn't been  watched the marathon i mean i knew the distance we went up the boss and we went to the freak just around the freedom trail yes did all of the tourists they ends and then we watched the marathon and then we back that night so you told me a very funny story about one of the reasons you wanted to run that marathon yes i had a friend at the time who had a pen new days watch and he had one the watch and instead on the dial instead of the numbers they had pennsylvania spelled out and i thought was a really cool thing so i thought well i'll enter the a have no idea what i want maybe a trophy so we just learned a lot about you in that last sentence you won your very st marathon with very little training and not really knowing what you were doing well i mean i had been traded i've no i was thinking of the the rat race they had the race in new york and it's not a marathon it is just a short races about three miles and it used to be you had to dress up in a suit and carry a briefcase april th and so everybody ran in lower manhattan and the surprise of people coming out of work and seeing all these people charging down the street wearing suits and cases and the which started it may says and it ended at the javits center and that was a five k race as well and the prize for that race was two tickets to st class tickets to go to paris and only about two years old so i remember them in the stroller at the start of the race and so you can't actually have your children in economy and they're not supposed to be in st class so they had they make an getting back to help prolific a racer you were you finished out nine hundred and seventy nine after all those other races we just talked about with the tokyo marathon in november coming in nd in two  london to tokyo and nina flew over with the american team from various parts of america but i did my method there and we became friends what was that like i mean and what year was that that was think it really  japanese women had run marathons before and they wanted to encourage the japanese women to run long distances and they closed down the roads completely in tokyo this waving of the flags how did the japanese women do for their st time i am i don't think they had invited all the top women from around the world so the women from australia and england and germany and and your running career there are very few runners who can post good times for a long time and julian was one of them he states she was too laid back to care about the prize she just loved her running more because i know a lot of maybe you certainly i when i look at your career it just was amazing how many races in marathon she would do ten i mean no serious runner to each and eight would run ten marathons a year i mean pleasure would be to travel to a marathon and run it interesting place did you ever look back and think i could've competed faster better one more if i had cut back on more speed workouts didn't run five or six year did that ever cross your brain it was an important it wasn't really important i was also working so i had a full time job at the same time so your records even more impressi sounds like a pole simon song as he had just traveled around to the west coast and down then across and back up and then you went back to england yes all right so we're going to move ahead a couple of stop in boston on the way home to london and so i was able to change my two kids and i was going to run in the freedom trail race which is a race i'm not sure if it still exists in boston it's about an eight mile race and it was happening the the following weekend used to go around bunker hill and finish right i think in the common in boston in downtown boston so i did what happened who did you meet so i met think that it was either israel or tom who said well let's put it this way if you're a was not there for the law and then he invited you to come to new york to listen to one of his readings yes and did you show mile race so what year did you get married we got married in one thousand nine hundred and one oh all right so a lot of running yes still in your life yes but you that you accomplished and did so you get married you move to born yeah so then in two thousand and seven what happens then it's something that i actually had to have a hip replacement in april of two thousand and seven through the hospital corridor dragging your i v with you by day three you walked three miles in the hospital and i think your doctors were thinking yeah she's going to make it but it's very difficult to and so were you able to resume any running after the hip replacement and the cancer surgery yes after the hip replacement i think a six weeks later i was able to start running again ok yes and around that time you started working at new york road runners as a volunteer yes that's right so tell us about your interaction with the kids who have no idea that they're being coached by a very world famous runner but i had quite  s one held the biggest case in my heart because i think running was such an important thing for them because most of them don't even leave chinatown normally so for them to come up to a race in central didn't the children cells they spoke english what was it about working with the children that touched you ask them to do something and they would i would do so they go yes i think it's more you we had a competition one used in the competition and became the t shirt that they had and i realized that she was she was very shy and that was one of the reasons she she was having trouble running and so we  organized for another child to run with her and she improved a lot and also i realized that she improved the most over the course of the year you know she didn't end up being the quickest those which of the children but she improved made the biggest improvement you have a favorite place to run i believe it's close to after and there is a race there that's the trophy is named after you yes it's on labor day it has a very difficult hill at the end very very steep hill which comes at about twenty five miles so it's a very tough finish to the race and it's quite hilly but it's very beautiful as well and the trophy is named after you it is  so this is spin a wonderful afternoon spending time with you and i remember once when i was interviewing your apartment just place and in the west village in the snow was coming down and i just sat there we were drinking so much tea i didn't want to leave it was just one of those perfect days and i said oh i think i'll have another cup of tea and and that's kind of how i you just have that sense about you it's just very relaxing being with you it's a lot of fun you have great stories such an incredible running history that we need to get out there more so thank you jillian being here it's very nice to be here talking to you i have one of the think you mentioned the very beginning  want to thank the manhattan neighborhood network for allowing us to use their space and certainly banks to well sanchez for allowing me to host and interview the wonderful jillian and i hope you learned something today about what it takes to be a champion because for jillian it was doing what she loved to do even her passion for running but it was also doing it her way thank you jillian and