Episode 613: Serena Burla – Wins Big Sur post retirement; 2:26 marathoner, cancer survivor & Mom of 3.
I'll Have Another with Lindsey Hein Podcast
SandyBoy Productions
4.9 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hey friends! I’m so excited to share this conversation with Serena Burla. I recently had the opportunity to emcee the Big Sur International Marathon, and as I was checking out the leaderboard, I saw Serena’s name—and I thought, wait, I know that name! Serena is a retired professional runner, and sure enough, she was out there racing—and won the marathon in 2:49.
A couple weeks later, we sat down to chat all about that experience and what it’s like to race a marathon post-retirement. Serena is a 2:26 marathoner who’s represented Team USA multiple times, including at the 2017 World Championships in London. She’s also a two-time cancer survivor. In 2010, she was diagnosed with a rare sarcoma in her leg. She came back from that diagnosis to run some of her fastest races ever—and then faced a recurrence of the same cancer in 2017. Through it all, she’s continued to show up with strength, optimism, and perspective.
In this episode, we talk about her incredible career, her mindset through some of the hardest moments, and what life looks like now as a mom of three. Serena isn’t on social media, so if you’ve followed her running journey in the past, I think you’ll really love this update. She has such a beautiful spirit and I walked away from this conversation feeling really inspired.
Big thanks to the Big Sur International Marathon for connecting us—if you haven’t checked out that race yet, add it to your list!
What we talked about:
4:00- Catching up with Serena and her recent race at the Big Sur Marathon
7:00- Reflecting on Boston 2018
9:10- Her win at Big Sur
17:00- Her family
23:20- Her cancer diagnosis and battle with cancer
38:00- Her faith throughout this process
39:00- Deciding to grow her family after her cancer treatments and after her marathon career
43:10- Training leading into Big Sur
54:10- End of podcast questions
Show notes:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Sandy Boy Productions podcast. |
| 0:18.4 | Hey everybody, welcome to all have another podcast with Lindsay Hine. |
| 0:22.8 | I'm your host, Lindsay. |
| 0:23.9 | Thank you so much for joining today. |
| 0:25.9 | I am super excited about this interview. |
| 0:28.2 | Recently, I had the opportunity to emce the Big Sur International Marathon. |
| 0:34.9 | And as I was looking through the leaderboard, I saw the name Serena |
| 0:39.4 | Berla. And I thought, I know that name. And come to find out that Serena, who is a retired |
| 0:45.4 | professional runner, she was running the race. And so she won the race in 249. And we got to do a fun |
| 0:52.4 | post-race interview. And now, two weeks after the race, we sat down for an |
| 0:57.5 | hour-long conversation about, well, first of all, her experience at the Big Sur Marathon, what that's |
| 1:02.3 | like running and racing a marathon post-retirement. Because she ran 249, like she was working hard. |
| 1:09.0 | It's just a different kind of race than when she was running |
| 1:12.5 | professionally. Serena is a 226 marathoner. She's represented Team USA multiple times. She competed in the |
| 1:21.1 | 2017 World Championships in London. She ran her 226 in Osaka in 2017. She also represented Team USA in 2015 in 2009. She ran |
| 1:35.1 | collegiately for the University of Missouri Columbia. And Serena is also a cancer survivor. In 2010, |
| 1:42.7 | she was diagnosed with a rare cancer, a rare sarcoma in her leg, |
| 1:47.3 | and then she recovered from that. Her doctor saved her leg, and she went on to run those |
| 1:53.8 | very fast times, compete on world teams again, and then in 2017, she was diagnosed with a |
| 1:59.0 | reoccurrence of that cancer. She ran the 2018 Boston Marathon a year later, the year that we all know about the |
| 2:07.4 | torrential downpour at that Boston Marathon. |
| 2:10.4 | And then she retired. |
... |
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