June 2024 Newsletter

Something that I get asked every once and a while by people who follow my Strava (https://strava.app.link/yce8Tmn3iJb), is something along the lines of, “RJ….what is up with your run titles?”

A fair question. Because most people’s run titles are something along the lines of “Afternoon Run”, “Speed work with Maggie”, or “Hill Repeats Round 2”. 

Meanwhile, my runs go like this: “Ro-bobo the Anime Music Powered Robot vs Deletatrix the Destroyer”, which may understandably beg a few questions. Like; are these episodes of a podcast? Chapters of audiobooks that I’m listening to while I run? The name of some obscure band? No, but in some small parts yes. I shall explain:

My brain is a chaos library. 

Allow me to explain further. 

A large section of my mindscape is taken up by active lore. Yes, this does include actual lore made by other people but mainly it is lore that I made in my mind about my own stories. Jumping in the way way back machine and scooting over to my childhood; early on I developed this habit I’m just now coining as storydreaming. We’re all familiar with daydreaming, this is pretty much that but my particular brand of daydreaming would be hoping right back into whatever story I had concocted in my brain and imagining it forward a few chapters. It was like I was directing movies in my head as a side gig for reality. It’s what I, a child with an active imagination, very few friends (but loving siblings), and, according to my parents, “a tendency to cause destruction when left unsupervised”, would do to be productive instead of causing said destruction or playing video games back when video game time and TV time was sacred and controlled. I’d give life to little stories, make characters and direct their adventures pretty much playing Dungeons and Dragons in my head with myself. And because I did also grow up HEAVILY influenced by video games, anime, and Power Rangers; these stories typically involved a hero episodically fighting some nasty baddie or ponderous trudging their way to an ultimate goal reflective of the media that I consumed. And eventually I did it often enough that it simply became second nature and just part of how my brain works. If you ever see my eyes unfocus and I’m staring off into space, I’m probably directing a story in my mind or thinking about what to eat 

But let’s return to the present and how this all ties into Strava titles. I joined Strava and also started actively running back in 2018, my first recorded Strava run was actually September 1st 2018! Back then I was of the thought that I would, like the previous times I tried running, give it up, also that no one would really be following me, which is to say I wasn’t planning on taking running or Strava particularly seriously. I wasn’t even going to use my real name since no one was going to be following me anyway and joked that I would go by one of the many names people thought RJ stood for. The name Robert Jordan rose to the top, which is the name of the late famed author responsible for the Wheel of Time book series (I never made it past chapter 1). The other thing about me is that I have no discipline, and motivators associated with that do not work on me. I am pure monkey brain meaning that something must be fun in order for me to continue doing it. So to optimize for my success of continued running I had to make aspects of it fun or silly. Fun and silly came in the form of thinking of how Robert Jordan (the author) would write about his runs and using that as the title. But what began to happen is that I actually kept running. My runs became longer and more frequent and that Robert Jordan joke was a well that was running dry. This was also the stage of my running career where I was running more BUT it still sucked and seemed to drag on forever. And in that dragging period where I would rather be doing anything besides running I began to turn back to my old storydreaming habits. I progressed to the point of running where instead of putting all my will and brainpower into not talking myself out of stopping or reflecting on the suffering of it all, I could effectively drift off into a story. And so naturally as my runs were effectively episodic, so were the stories I created. I started having a lot of fun with it and getting really into drafting up new characters and the worlds they would inhabit (I love me some worldbuilding) and I thought, “why not use Strava as a journal of sorts to keep track of the story and the characters since I’m recording the run anyway?”. And that was when the infamous RJ Strava title was born. 

Full disclosure I’m not actively composing a Lord of the Rings level story every time I run. The stories are pretty simple and quick, reflecting their heritage coming from an anime and cartoon influenced childhood. In fact, the first Strava run character I ever made was Ro-bobo the Anime Music Powered Robot. We won’t go into the deep lore here, but Ro-bobo arose because I realized my running playlists were 95% music from anime. This is because anime music compositionally has high bpm, “action chords” that sound heroic, and lots and lots of energy which did wonders for pushing through the early running days. I started to think about and roll with a weird concept, as speculative fiction writers often do, “but what if you COULD harness the power of anime music to fight better, run faster, be stronger? What would that look like?”. And thus Ro-bobo was born. Formerly a CD player with a well-worn bootleg anime music CD inside, Ro-bobo, was transformed by a mysterious technovirus that gave all advanced electronics in the world sentience and personality based on their original function. So for Ro-bobo this resulted in a personality built on the principles of shonen anime; heroism, fighting stuff, over-the-top action, love, peace, and justice for all! Unfortunately, he was still just a CD player. Fortunately, his owner was a brilliant engineer and roboticist and she built a robot suit around his cd core allowing him the ability to fight crime alongside her and fulfill his need for heroism and justice! Crime being many of the other evolved electronics and programs that were taking physical form and often had beef with humanity (Deletatrix the Destroyer is modeled after Alexa). 

Anyway, as you can see what became fun for me were the characters that I made and freedom to imagine what they would do next. It became something of a mental exercise and a way of ensuring that I could find running enjoyable and thus motivated to keep doing it. As strange as it might sound, I had to keep running because my character’s stories depended on it! And they just kept coming. After Ro-bobo came Ronin Jones the Middle-Aged Detective; a failed boy-detective giving it a second go. And then Captain Ruby Quasar; a mutant bounty hunter, pilot, and racer. And so on and so forth for 6 years! To the point where my brain is full of the lore of runs. I went back through all my Strava posts and did some stats; I have made over 1,200 posts that were tied to a story across at least 20 distinctive characters. Of course, none of the actual story content is written down anywhere besides inside my head, but I reckon if I had actually put pen to paper I would be rivalling some of the most prolific pulp novel authors of the time. 

You might be wondering at this point, why am I telling you all this? Well partly because as I have mentioned above, I like telling stories, but also because dear running fam I want to encourage you to take some time to think about what really motivates you to run. And I also want to encourage you to attach something meaningful to your runs and when I say that I mean meaningful to you. For me, I figured out a way to merge all of my most beloved activities (being creative, story crafting, good music for the background of the story) with running, and that has allowed me to see running as something other than just a means to an end. And seeing running as just that is totally fine! What’s important I think is that you make running yours because it will make you care about it and hopefully derive joy from it. And that is my sincere wish, for my running fam to find joy in their running 😊. 

This is also topical for me because it was just my birthday. Some people in the running community, whose names rhyme with Lara Raskin, celebrate their birthday by running their age in miles. 

I am 34. I will not be doing that. But my fervent support of those that do! 

Instead, I’ve chosen to celebrate my birthday the last few years by running every day from the 1st of April until the 19th of April and crafting and dedicating a special 19-part story for one of my characters. At the end of the streak, that character gets crafted their happy ending and rides off into the sunset, getting effectively retired from the Strava posts. But it is also when I birth out a new character, a one in one out scenario. It’s really the nexus of all the things I talked about above, running to complete a story, running to have fun with my ideas, running through the challenge because doing so is part of how I make running mine. Admittedly it does seem to get harder every year to push through the 19 days, there were a good few days this year when I had some serious concerns about my knee (I’m fine though!). But despite that, every day I would have feverish anticipation for the next part of the story and lace up anyway the next day. 

In conclusion, none of us are completely immune to our monkey brain, the part of our brain that really would prefer not to do anything that isn’t eating, sleeping, or having fun. But think about how you could make your monkey brain work for you, by turning your running into something you enjoy. However, you get there or choose to do it is up to you. After all, you always have the ability to write your own story. 

Racing Updates

• Double Header for the UVRS in June with Skip’s Run (16 June) and The Shaker 7 (23 Jun)! The Shaker 7 is also part of the NHGP so own that home court advantage!
• Road races not your thing? No worries, in May the Western New Hampshire Trail Series has Stix in the Six (15 June) and Hurricane Hill just around the corner (20 July)
• While admission is closed send your positive racing vibes for all our runners doing the Mount Washington Road Race Saturday June 15th!

Club Announcements

Local Resources: Our good friends at Ciofreddi and Associates (Physical Therapy and Wellness) want to remind our members that they provide a multitude of services specifically for runners and athletes beyond physical therapy, such as their VO2 Max testing service. VO2 Max is a critical aspect of optimizing your running performance and essentially is understanding how fast you can get oxygen to where it needs to go in your body while working out and get CO2 out of there. They gave a great seminar on running performance and endurance training that is available on their website here and is a great watch if you want to learn more about how you can train smarter! UVRC has a long history with Ciofreddi’s and they’ve done amazing work in keeping our runners injury free and helping them recover so we highly recommend them! 

Tuesday Night Track: We are on for our summer schedule which means that effective immediately we will be on the Dartmouth Track! The entrance is in the Northwest corner closer to the baseball fields. And we will be there come rain or shine! 

A few quick notes about TNT if you haven’t come

• It is a track workout meaning its a time to work on your speed and endurance
• The Coaches think of a workout that is challenging to help you push yourself
• YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THE WORKOUT AS PRESCRIBED! It is a recommendation and a good alignment point for you and your fellow runners. You can totally choose to do more or less or modify as needed
• It is track time! Show up and run even if you don’t think you can or want to do the workout! Flat space is hard to come by in this neck of the woods, who doesn’t love a flat workout
• It’s for everyone. All paces  

Summer Runner’s Night Outs: Every Second Tuesday of the month we head over to Hanover Ramuntos for free pizza on the club! Come hang out with your pal’s after Tuesday Night Track, and eat FREE PIZZA!

• June 11th
• July 9th
• August 13th

Saturday Morning Runs: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY! Saturday morning runs will be at 0800AM instead of 9AM to beat some of the summer heat.  We will meet in front of Omer and Bobs for a chiller social run. People break out into groups based on pace and route and head off. Afterwards we meet on the Leb Green for baked goods or head over to Lucky’s Coffee for some breakfast!

Volunteer Opportunities

In case you missed it we’re doing a 2024 UVRC VOLUNTEER CHALLENGE see the March Newsletter for full details! 

Upcoming Opportunities

There are MANY local races coming up including Skips Run, the Shaker Seven, and the Red, White, and Blue 6.2 and they could always use helping hands! Reach out to Paul Coats at <paul.coats@lebanonnh.gov> if you are interested in volunteering.

What was the race or running event?

Probably not a race that really needs much introduction but it was the (checks the many many emails from Mike Silverman (my brother in writing novella length emails)) 32nd Annual Covered Bridges Half-Marathon! This was my third year running it as a Pacer and my first year completely organizing the Pacing Team. If you didn’t know, historically the UVRC has provided pacers from 1:30 goal time up to 2:30 goal time for years now! It's a great way to give back to the community and you get to participate in one of the most sought after races in New England! They say it is the ‘Taylor Swift Concerts’ of races because it typically sells out within minutes! As a Pacer though you get to skip the lines, the only “catch” is that you have to run a set pace which was fine with me! Reach out to the club next year if you want to try, it's a lot of fun!

How did the day go in general?

In general very well! As an event organizer, especially events that rely on people showing up, I have a MASSIVE anxiety spike in the days leading up to it because without fail this is the time when things start happening. People have to drop out, can’t show up, sicknesses pop up, the Universe seems to have it out for you. I don’t hold it against anyone obviously, stuff happens, but that doesn’t mean a small part of me isn’t constantly freaking out and praying that every text or email I get isn’t someone telling me they can’t make it. BUT this year we had a great turn out including some new people , everyone got to where they needed to go and it went swimmingly! The runners were super appreciative of having pacers and I've heard several reports of people PRing thanks to the help of our pacers. So a net win and I’m proud that we as a club can and did provide this for the community! 

What went well?

As far as coordination goes I think everything went through without any hiccups! All my pacers who could show up did showup, no one got injured, everyone enjoyed themselves, and the Race Directors were happy. Wins all around! It was a lovely day although it did heat up far too quickly for my liking as I will discuss in a second. The crew that was in my pacing group was very fun to talk to and I had a blast telling them awful jokes e.g. “What do you get when you buy a treadmill? A run for your money” . Misha, my copacer, was a great companion who honestly shouldered the weight of carrying our pacer sign like a champ. The first 10.5 miles was a blast and it felt good to run in a racing pack

What did not go so well?

The last 2.6 miles was not a blast! The heat got to me faster than I expected and I cramped up like crazy trying to ingest Gu. It felt like someone had stabbed me in the side and I was extremely disappointed to have to drop back and let Misha take the reins. I was hoping it would pass quickly enough that I could catch up but that was not in the cards for me. Fortunately I was able to recover enough to hop on to the next pace group and finish with my pacer buddy Chris so all in all not a bad thing. But this was really a rookie mistake in my training 

How did you prepare for the event? Anything you would do differently in training?

And here in fact lies the problem. I didn’t. I did not train enough and thought I would be fine and I was wrong. My body reminded me that it's more than just being in shape, you have to also train to fuel while running for a long time and I had forgotten that and I paid for it. This year I’ve really seen a decrease in my long distance running and of course I couldn’t just pull it out just because I wanted to and coast on willpower and short distance athleticism. So I would really invest more time in doing longer runs at a slower pace.

Any notable moments?

Oh lots! 

There is a small hairpin loop through Woodstock where we essentially come in and out on the same road. It's the one time during the race where you get to overlap with other runners ahead and behind you. I love this part so much because this is where the magic of the racing experience happens and you get to see humans at their best. In the sections where you can see the other runners ahead or behind you people will be screaming encouragement to them and cheering them on. Complete strangers all wrapped up in the same experience motivating others just as someone did for them moments before. I think it's beautiful. Also if we’re lucky we get to see the other pacing groups and as weird as it might sound it’s like being ship Captains passing in the night, each on your own journey but bonded in your shared responsibility. We are fundamentally experiencing a different race than everyone else and may not have many supporters or any supporters like the other racers so it's nice to be able to cheer each other on.

Also there was a point, I think around mile 9, where a person that had been with us for most of the race remarked that they were surprised they were able to keep up with us the whole time and they were appreciative that we were there. And it is comments like that which make me happy to be doing this. Not only because it's very gratifying but I LOVE when my fellow runners are able to exceed their own expectations. We put so much doubt on ourselves unnecessarily and while you can’t solve everything by believing in yourself, it DOES do wonders for your mental game and should be acknowledged. Believe in yourself Fam!

 I also worked the info booth the day prior and got a chance to hang out with the Co-Race Directors Nancy and Mike and both of them are a hoot! Nancy and I especially had a great time bonding over all the perhaps overzealous amount of information we put into emails and the hopes that people read them. And honestly its people like Nancy and Mike (and everyone at Leb Rec) that are my personal heroes. People who put so much darn effort into organizing events for the community that ostensibly are primarily to make people happy and are such a mighty force for good. I got to learn a lot about the inner workings of the CBHM and gained an even better appreciation for truly how much they give back to the community through the CBHM including back to the UVRC! So again, if you are able to volunteer your time as a pacer for the CBHM or just as a volunteer I STRONGLY encourage it. You are helping far more people than you would guess by improving the race experience. 

Any changes you would make to how you ran?

Wellllllllll we may have started off a little bit too fast. But pacing is a delicate thing and it’s hard to judge. I definitely would have NOT done the gel Gu’s and that’s on me, because I know I like the blocks better. It was also very difficult to get a good warm up in because of my duties as the pacing captain, which I wouldn’t necessarily change but it does kinda shakeup the start of my run. 

What was the race or running event?

Steel Rail Race Half Marathon in Pittsfield, MA on May 19, 2024. We picked this race because the trail looked flat, the weather was supposed to be good, and we liked the small size (~200 ppl) and easy logistics (plentiful parking 50 ft from the race start). 

There were also an 8K and a marathon as part of the event.

The course on the gorgeous and highly rated Ashuwillticook Rail Trail is indeed very flat, with a total ascent of 62 ft, according to the watch; the race website claimed it was 218 ft, or a 2% grade 🤷. The trail is fully paved and goes through marshes, woods, and near a lake. There are plenty of birds. Olga particularly enjoyed Canada geese with their ducklings. The lake is beautiful and comes with the bonus of a nice breeze. The trail is extremely well-maintained, incl. one spot with permanent restrooms. There were water/Gatorade stations every ~2 miles. The course is certified and apparently popular for Boston qualification. The drive from the Upper Valley is a scenic 2.5 hours. We both loved the course and highly recommend it.

Protip: they ran out of spots a few days before the race but miraculously, a web inquiry Misha submitted got us special permission to join from the race director. Your mileage may vary, of course.

How did the day go in general?

Olga: As this was my first half-marathon and the longest-ever run, my goal was to finish. I thought I might end up with a 12:30-13:30 pace. I finished in 2:43:27 with a 12:28 average pace, the fastest I’d done on a long run. 

Misha: It was a great race. I finished in 1:52, which was a minute faster than my previous fastest time, but slower than my goal of 1:50.

What went well?

Olga: I accomplished my goals and had a great time. I struck up a conversation with a cool fellow runner, whose company and program helped me greatly through the first half of the run. I was well prepared through training to run injury-free and I’m happy with my effort level (especially the consistent and controlled heart rate) and results. Nutrition, hydration, gear, and other prep were well executed and worked well on this run.

Misha: The weather was great - not too hot and cloudy, and the humidity was manageable. The race is super flat and there was a lot of shade. 

What did not go so well?

Olga: While following another runner for a while worked well for me on this run, I tend to do that a bit too much vs. sticking with my program. I got company / moral support in return, but this is something to watch in the future.

Misha: There were fewer than 200 runners and in the second half of the race I was mostly running by myself. It was a bit sad and probably one of the reasons why I slowed down quite a bit.

How did you prepare for the event? Anything you would do differently in training?

Olga: I didn’t know I was going to run a half-marathon until about 3 weeks before the event. 😅So the training sort of just happened. It wasn’t completely random though: I appropriately did 3 longer runs, a couple of 20+ mile weeks, and a taper, so I knew I should be able to finish. At Misha’s suggestion, we walked the first ~1.5 miles of the course the night before the race to familiarize ourselves with the parking situation and the trail. This was a great help in getting me mentally in the race from mile 1.

Misha: UVRC Tuesday and Saturday runs helped sooo-o-o much!

Any notable moments?

Olga: I did a fist pump at the 12-mile marker to mark surpassing my farthest run. There was the sweetest trio of dudes in head-to-toe biker gear, with motorcycles, supporting a woman runner. They moved through multiple spots on the course taking pictures of her running and waving handmade posters.

Misha: Local beer and a pretzel after the race cheered me up.

Any changes you would make to how you ran?

Olga: Looking at a short video Misha took of me at the finish line, my posture sucks, and I need to fix it! Separately, going forward, I want to work on running faster.

Misha: Per usual - slow down in the beginning to avoid slowing down too much during the second half.