Transformations Through Running

Dr. Steve Smith is an orthopedic chiropractor with more than 40 years of experience and an extensive education in chiropractic care. He has had great success helping clients with a diverse range health issues including running injuries, headaches, work related injuries, and motor vehicle accidents. He is able to treat and prevent neck, back and spine injury as well as leg and ankle injury.

As an avid runner, Dr. Smith specializes in injury prevention for runners and takes his knowledge to the community with programs like Team-in-Training and the Pasadena Pacers Running Club. For the last 22 years he has partnered with Team in Training to provide training, coaching seminars and treatment to runners for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. In addition, Dr. Smith co-founded the Pasadena Pacers Running Club with his wife Robin Smith. The Pacers provide a committed, inspiring environment for runners of all skill levels to reach a state of ultimate fitness and vitality.

Most recently, Dr. Smith has developed a series of stretching videos for runners that you can view on his website. His has written a book focuses on orthopedic injury prevention and treatment called, "Run Healthy, Run Strong"

Devin is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Vice President of Operations at Evolution Physical Therapy in Los Angeles.  He works with clients at the Evolution Physical Therapy South Bay location and is passionate about helping runners and triathletes stay healthy and perform better. 

He competes in marathons and triathlons of Olympic and Half Ironman distance.  He is a 2x Boston Marathon Qualifier and is currently training for the 2020 Boston Marathon.

Devin grew up in upstate New York.  He obtained his Doctorate in Physical Therapy at Ithaca College in 2010 and worked at an outpatient orthopedic clinic in NYC for 4 years before moving to Los Angeles and joining Evolution.  He currently lives in Torrance with his wife, dog, and 3 month old daughter.

My name is Wendy Keller, I’m a wellness coach and clinical massage therapist-during the week I work at a Chiropractor office in Hermosa; weekends is at my private practice in Manhattan Beach. I was a soccer player my entire youth, indoor and outdoor, until 18 when my family relocated from the Chicago burbs to Las Vegas.

Vegas didn’t have any female or mixed leagues in those ancient days so I stuck to running outside and that’s when I got into hiking, cycling and yoga. Years later after returning to Chicago for college (American Academy of Art), I met Ed Casey.

After a major neck injury that I could not fully recover from, we decided to pack up our amazing pup, Tex and drive west into the sunset.....That’s the short version-it was extremely painful and completely debilitating for approx 4 years until we left and I continued my treatment regimen in Cali.

In total I went through 8 years of intense rehabilitation and literally had to change every aspect in my life from sleeping, breathing, sneezing, exercising, how to deal with flaring-up and taking months to recover and learn how to blow past that current stage of recovery safely.

That process is what inspired me to start coaching other people how to go through the injury process or manage a chronic issue: what to do, what NOT to do, what/how to change movement patterns, what other modalities to use, how to ergo-dynamic your life and become as pain free as possible. I love helping people get back to feeling like themselves again.

I’ve not participated in running a race yet, but I’ve worked with many triathletes and Iron Man qualifiers over my career and spent 3 years working the medical tent at the Chicago City Marathon so I have much respect for long distance athletes. My max is 4 miles when I’m strong. I hope this year to cheer more often and maybe even attempt my 1st 5k!

Mark Minichiello, is the Head Coach and Program Administrator for the LA Road Runners since 2017, the official training program of the Los Angeles Marathon.

Mark is a Boston marathon qualifier, New York marathon qualifier and Abbott World Marathon Majors Six Star finisher. Mark has completed over twenty-five marathons on four continents.

Coaching History & Philosophy

Mark is a USA Track and Field certified coach and both a certified RRCA Certified Level 1 Coach and a RRCA Certified Race Director. Mark began his coaching career with the South Bay Runners Club (RRCA & USATF) in Manhattan Beach, California, where he coaches track and marathon training practice. In 2016, TEAM PAWS, a national charity selected Mark as their training coach overseeing their 550 plus marathon athletes nationwide for the Chicago and New York City Marathons.

In 2017, Conqur Endurance, the owner of the Los Angeles Marathon, selected Mark as head Coach to overseer the LA Road Runners official training program for the Los Angeles Marathon.

Mark goal over the course of his running career has been to inspire other athletes. He believes training is 30% percent physical and 70% percent mental. It is his job to define the objective of his athletes, analyze their results and provide constructive feedback.

As a coach, he provides the athlete with this expertise by explaining the “why” with the goal of empowering the athlete to train optimally. He tries to instill the power of belief, so when his athletes are truly tested, they believe in their ability to accomplish their goal. Mark believes this approach will sustain them in their darkest moments when they want to quit, but won’t!

In this show Dorothy interviews Drew Taddia, on how to find success. How he was able to start a radio show, create podcasts and be part of a running community.

In this show they talk about setting goals, creating a plan and living inspired. Follow along to learn how you can set and achieve goals yourself!

I was born and raised in Tokyo Japan. Finished high school in Tokyo and moved to the US to attend college. 

I didn’t plan for it initially, but I ended up going to medical school & got a job in Los Angeles. Now I’m married and with a dog... so I’m happily stuck in Los Angeles. 

As for the athletics, I was an avid soccer player & coach; but it got harder to find a team to play for. I started dabbling in cycling, which led me to dabble in triathlon and eventually an Ironman races.

After getting married in 2017 and doing the Ironman Canada a week later (and missing out on Kona championship slot), I decided to focus on marathon. I BQed and ran Boston in 2019. Now I’m chasing my first sub 3 marathon and eventually hope to run 6 major marathons. 

I’m an attending foot and ankle surgeon at the cedars Sinai medical center. I train and mentor 4 residents & I have a private practice in Los Angeles, 0.5 miles away from the Cedars campus. I see some of my fellow runners in my clinic for sports injuries.

My specialty is wound care, which is mostly older and chronically ill people with bed sores, burns and diabetic foot wounds. 

I am a Buddhist and I’ve been a “vegetarian” my whole life. I became a vegan about 3-4 years ago & lost weight and feel great than ever.

I live in a little house with a big yard in Manhattan Beach with my husband Mike, human child Nate, and the fur kids, Dexter (sweet old chocolate Lab) and Hawkeye (crazy orange tabby cat). Nate is 18 and attending El Camino College. My dad was in the Navy when I was little, so we moved around quite a bit, but I mostly grew up in the Washington, DC area, and then went to college in Vermont. After college, a friend and I drove across the country to live in LA, pretty much on a whim. I’ve now lived here over 30 years!

I work as an operations supervisor for a large printing company in Torrance. I do financial forecasting, budgeting, and analysis, hiring and firing, fun stuff like that! Which is very weird because I majored in art & literature in college. Go figure.

I am a homebody. I like napping, reading, and watching cat videos. I also like cooking and eating. I’m vegan (not an angry vegan, a nice vegan LOL). My family loves baseball, and we have a goal to visit all 30 major league ballparks together, a few each year. We’ll get to 23 this year. It’s been great, since we’ve ended up visiting lots of cities we’d never have seen otherwise.

Writer and Certified Coach, Level Two for both, USA Track and Field and USA Triathlon; and Level One, Certified Coach, Road Runners Club of America.

David A. Levine, is co-author of the Complete Idiots Guide to Marathon Training, which came out worldwide in 2012. Runner’s World Magazine has quoted him. He is a certified Coach, Level Two, with USA Track & Field and Level Two with USA Triathlon, both signatories of the US Olympic Committee. 

Recently, he received his Level One Coaching Certification from Road Runners Club of America. A three-time Ironman and twenty-seven time marathoner, Levine coached and organized the City Of Angels Half Marathon training group, now USA Marathon Training, for thirteen seasons, and ongoing.

Most of the experienced runners in that group, and under his leadership, achieve a personal record (PR) with each major race.  For over fourteen years, he has been coaching weekly track workouts as Coach for the LA Running Club. 

With triathlon as a passion, Levine coached a Team-In-Training triathlon group, with similar positive results, and proudly helps his Sony Tri Team.   For nine seasons, he was a Pace Leader with the 1,600 member LA Roadrunners.

There he helped on the coaching advisory committee, for the last two years he was there, ending in 2011.  He is currently on the Board of the South Bay Running Club (SBRC), the LA Running Club (LARC), and USA Marathon Training (USA MT).

All three of which, he helped found, with others. Levine has also been a published features writer for numerous publications, including magazine cover articles and newspapers.

Jasmine Moezzi is a 25 year old Iranian-American Triathlete, Chronic Illness Warrior/Advocate, KEEN Los Angeles volunteer, and world traveler.

She was born and raised in Los Angeles and holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Southern California and is currently employed at Equinox Culver City.

She proudly represents Iracelikeagirl International Women's Team founded by her coach and biggest inspiration, Pro Triathlete Angela Naeth.

5 years ago before her senior year at USC, she lived abroad in Taiwan where things took a very unexpected turn. She became extremely ill with many debilitating symptoms for years to come, but she's never let her illness define her or stop her from living her life to the fullest.

To help her cope with the constant pain and discomfort from her illness, she decided to push her mind and body further than ever before by joining the USC Triathlon Team. Without knowing how to swim or bike properly and having minimal running experience, she dove right in and dedicated all her free time to training for her first triathlon. She slowly started seeing her progress and how much it was helping her mind and body cope with her illness, so she stuck with it and never looked back.

In 2016, she competed in Collegiate Regionals and qualified for USA Triathlon Collegiate Nationals in South Carolina. Shortly after, she completed her first Ironman 70.3 in Hawaii while raising over $8,000 for the Children's Tumor Foundation.

Michael Weisberg considers running to be more than a passion, but a way of live. He ran his first 5K race when he was seven and ran track & field through high school.

After a lengthy hiatus and significant weight gain, Michael started training for his first marathon, the 2012 Los Angeles Marathon. In addition to losing 55 pounds in 8 months, he rekindled his love of running. Since then he has run 9 marathons and over 20 half-marathons.

In a desire to give back to the running community, Michael is a co-founder and President of the South Bay Runners Club. In just over 4 years, SBRC now has over 400 members of all abilities and all demographics. He is an RRCA Certified Coach, senior pace leader for the LA Roadrunners (the official training program for the Los Angeles Marathon), and is on the race committee for the Manhattan Beach 10K, where he will be taking over as race director in 2020.

Michael ran his first Boston Marathon in April 2017, after qualifying at Mountains 2 Beach in May 2016. He has completed the US leg of the Abbott World Majors and is hoping to add some international marathons to his schedule.

Also the CCO of the South Bay Runners Clubs (that’s Chief Culinary Officer), Michael often brings homemade baked goods. When not training with SBRC, he can usually be found spending time watching Marvel movies with his family or walking Suki, the Maltipoo. While he doesn’t post often, you can follow him on Instagram at @weisberg262.