Hello UVRC Newsletter subscribers!! My name is Randall Reynolds, and I have been part of the UVRC since September 2016. I joined to prepare for a 5k and never left, although I do not race often now. Over the years, I slowly absorbed and adopted the running culture, and I feel like running helped me develop better athletic habits and kick old habits I developed as a kid. 

I grew up participating in a lot of activities: Karate, soccer, football, snowboarding. Ultimately, snowboarding appealed the most and shaped my lifestyle. I would ride from first chair to last, weeknights and weekends. In fact, I missed out on all pop culture from 2000-2018 because I only consumed snowboard movies, music, magazines and other snowboard-related content. You may be wondering what bad exercise habits I could have developed? Well, in freestyle snowboarding, it was extremely common to not warm up, not eat food, not drink water … Everyone’s goal was to be on-hill as long as possible and the “best” way to accomplish this was reducing or eliminating food, water and bathroom stops.

When I started running in 2016, I felt tired during the day, and I didn’t feel motivated to run a lot of the time. I continued to run, but generally, I was underprepared for all my runs; it was difficult to dive into running that same way I did with snowboarding. For years, I made a lot of mistakes: not bringing water/food on Moosilauke’s 12-mile Tunnel Loop, a total of four granola bars for the Pemi Traverse, insufficient fueling before a workout, not drinking water during the day … (the list is quite long and embarrassing). A bout of recurring headaches last summer forced me to make some fueling/hydration adjustments, and my world changed. I could enjoy longer runs, run faster and most importantly, not fall asleep immediately after a day of snowboarding!! My younger self could have greatly benefited from my new habits. Outside of athletics, I started to feel less tired and to improve my planning skills. Actually preparing for running translated to better time management at work and home.

I had a hard time moving on from all my habits learned from snowboarding. However, running helped me develop new habits that helped me with all my activities. Most people may not have to fix poor hydration habits like I did, but running and the UVRC have plenty of other valuable lessons to offer.

Randall