Meet Lexie Thiros | Running Coach | Athlete | Exercise Physiologist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lexie Thiros and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lexie, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
The work-life balance has historically been elusive to me. I firmly believe in creating the best work-life balance for yourself, but this is something I have to be conscious of and will always be working towards. Having spent all of high school, college, and grad school as a student-athlete, I developed a habit of minimizing my social life and maximizing my time spent studying, training, and working. It made me “successful” in the traditional sense of the word, but in reality I probably would have benefited from prioritizing more down time and social time. I learned how to balance this much better by the end of college and into my professional life. Right now I still need to supplement my coaching with other forms of work, so I am trying to balance two jobs, my own training, and my personal life. What has helped me the most is keeping a consistent schedule and routine. My day typically consists of going for my run in the morning with my pup, Ilios, then working on a bit of coaching before heading to my other job from late morning to evening. Usually once I’m off work, I’ll go do my second workout, then head home to cook dinner and finish up anything else I need to do around the house. On days off of my other job, I spend most of my time working on coaching and training plans for my athletes. Since my day is pretty busy, I make sure to set aside specific times to hang out with my friends, make some art, read a book, bake a new recipe, play with Ilios, etc. I’ve learned that I need to treat self-care and downtime as important as my other obligations during the day and sometimes even plan them ahead of time to make sure I am actually getting that rest and recharge time. All that being said, I do truly enjoy most everything I do during the day. I love coaching and I love training, and I always make sure that whatever my other supplemental job is, that I enjoy the environment and the people I work with. I like spending time on my own too so oftentimes my long runs out in the mountains become my meditation and recharge time. I think my balance now is much better than it used to be, but there’s always room for improvement on my end.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am still building my career! After finishing grad school in the spring of 2022, I have been working on creating a unique professional life for myself. As a competitive runner and passionate exercise physiologist, I took to coaching professionally as a way to use my experience and knowledge to help others in their own unique journeys towards their running, health, and wellness goals. So far, I am most proud and excited about being able to use my research in ways that benefit my athletes. I researched the effect of the menstrual cycle on performance in endurance runners in grad school and have been able to use that information to educate many of the female athletes I have worked with. I think it is so important because women’s health (hormonal, menstrual, pelvic floor health, etc) is often overlooked, especially in the athletic population. Looking to the future, I have plans to pursue my PhD in exercise science as well and am very excited about working towards this.

My life is still evolving, but I got to where I am today from both my own drive and dedication to my work as well as the support of my friends, family, coaches, and teammates. I spent my first couple years of college in my home state, California, before transferring out to finish both my undergraduate and graduate work at Western Colorado University. I decided to start my college education at my local community college because I wanted to develop as an athlete for a couple more years under my amazing coach, Thom Hunt, before joining a team at a four-year university. Once transferring to Western in Gunnison, CO, I knew I found the perfect place for me. I developed so much as both an athlete and a person after moving here, and was able to make so many great connections within the community. I loved Gunnison so much that I decided to stay after graduating and was able to teach in the biology department and assistant coach for the cross country and track teams here at my alma mater. In the year after graduating, I was able to start building my own roster of athletes through Team RunRun, where I remotely coach all abilities over the roads and trails and across various race distances. I have been loving coaching on this personal level because I love being able to individualize training to help athletes reach their unique goals.

I wouldn’t say the path to where I am now was easy – I had my fair share of rough patches along the way. I transferred colleges twice (once from my community college to a four-year university, SF State, and once from SF State to Western Colorado University), which added on an extra year of undergraduate work. I competed as a collegiate athlete in both cross country and track throughout all of my undergraduate and graduate school, which posed the typical student-athlete challenges of balancing practice, workouts, school, work, life, fatigue, etc. The COVID outbreak happened during the track season of my senior year too which also happened to be when I was dealing with an injury. This kick-started a very mentally and emotionally challenging year for me. I couldn’t perform in practice or in races and every day felt like I was just fighting against my body. The goal of every day became to just make it through the day. I worked with multiple doctors looking at blood panels for various biomarkers and hormones, but we couldn’t find anything blatantly wrong. After fighting the suggestion for quite a few months, I ended up diagnosed with clinical depression and was prescribed antidepressants. After a couple more months of working with my doctor, my therapist, and my new medication, I finally started feeling like myself again, I was able to have a huge comeback year from both a mental/emotional and athletic standpoint by my sixth year (last year of grad school) and was finally competing well again while finishing up my master’s thesis. These experiences are what opened the door for me to spend this past year teaching and coaching at Western.

Through these challenges, the biggest lesson I learned was how to give myself grace in challenging times. I have a very “Type A” personality and can struggle with perfectionism to a detrimental point. I remember struggling with thoughts about how I was less valuable as a person if I wasn’t performing top-tier every day. I thought that others would like me less if I wasn’t accomplishing the goals I set for myself. It took a lot of work and support, but eventually I learned that these were nothing more than lies I was telling myself and were not grounded in any reality. My passions and goals are important – but my self-worth is dependent on how I treat others and how I act as a human, first and foremost. This is what I try to teach my athletes and those around me. If there is one thing I want the world to take from this, it is to believe in, be kind to, and respect yourself in the ways that you would your closest friends and family.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
There is so much to do in and around Gunnison, especially during the summertime! I would definitely take them to my favorite coffee shop, Tributary, for a great cup of coffee (beans roasted in-house) and one of their amazing breakfast burritos or cinnamon rolls. If they’re into drinks, the local brewery High Alpine would be the place to go for their unique craft beers. My go-to restaurant is always Sherpa for some delicious Nepalese and Himalayan food.

In the daytime, I would take them down to the river to hang, or maybe rent some paddle boards and head to Blue Mesa. Any of the trails up in Crested Butte make for amazing hikes (or trail runs!), especially out towards Gothic. Every Saturday in Gunnison is the local farmer’s market, and every Sunday in Crested Butte is their local farmer’s market/art walk. We have live music on Wednesday and Sunday evenings between both Gunni and Crested Butte too, which make for a great way to hang out with friends and with the community. I would end the day by stargazing and camping out at Hartman Rocks!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
To start, I’d like to shoutout my parents, Sophia and Steve Thiros, and my brother and sister, Louie and Elena, for always supporting me and my goals. I would also like to shoutout my college cross country and track team and coaches I had at Western Colorado University. I never realized what I was capable of until working with these individuals. They taught me how to believe in my own ability and how to push myself beyond the limits I thought I had. I would also like to shoutout my athletes, Between assistant coaching at Western this past year and coaching individuals online, I am always so inspired by the work ethic, dedication, passion, and willingness to learn that all my athletes exhibit. Nothing makes me happier and more inspired than watching these athletes realize their potential.

Website: https://www.thelongrunlab.com/

Instagram: @coachlexruns

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexia-thiros-38a810232/

Other: My coaching profile! This is how people can sign up for coaching with me: https://teamrunrun.com/coach/lexie-thiros-gunnison-running-coach/

Image Credits
Michael Weidenbruch, Josh Kutcher, and Mason Schultz