03.05.08
Posted in Interview at 9:03 pm by Dave
This is the next installment in a series of interviews with membes of CAC.
Tell us a little about yourself, Brent.
That is the mother of all open-ended questions. Well, here is the little that is mildly interesting or important. I was born in Denver, Colorado, but moved to North Carolina right before I started first grade. I am the middle child, with an older sister and younger brother and grew up in a small city/large town (about 15-20,000) called Shelby. I went to college an hour away from home at Davidson College, but it might as well have been 10 hours away. It certainly wasn’t Shelby. Only 15% of the students were from NC and around half were from the South. I majored in philosophy and, during my senior year, swore (mostly out of laziness) I would not go to medical school. After “finding myself” (doing everything from skiing to substitute teaching) for a few years after college, I realized that I was most excited/interested by a career in medicine, so I decided to pursue that goal. Currently, I am between my third and fourth years of medical school at UNC. “Between” meaning that I elected to take part in a medical scholars program that gives funding for one year of medical research. I have also been married for almost 4 years to Kate (Bedinger) Ferrell whom I met at Davidson.
When and how did you get started running?
I was always a decent miler in elementary school PE. In middle school, I ran track and won some meets, but not many. Growing up, tennis was my sport of choice. It occupied almost all of my time until I was about 14 or 15 and a tennis -nly diet made me weary. Seeing the light, I ran two track and three XC seasons in HS and was eventually third in the state in 3A XC and 2nd in the two mile, though my times were not that great. I wasn’t recruited at all(not even by Joan 
), so I made my college decision based on academics. Davidson was the best fit in that respect but also became a great place for me to develop as a runner. Eventually, I had some success and set a few school records, but did not achieve all of my goals. Those goals still motivate me.
What types of races do you feel suit your strengths?
I am not sure about this. Though I lack the wispy marathon physique, it seems that my longer races are better comparatively. I probably will be best at the 5 and 10 with the proper preparation but think I could still run well in the half or full marathon. My running talent is probably in my ability to tolerate the pain of running hard, because it ain’t my speed. Regarding my success in the marathon, the major factor is how long I can continue to train at a high level due to my particular career choice.
What type of workout gives you the most confidence?
Longer repeats. I did 5-6x mile often in college and this always gave me a ton of confidence.
What type of workout do you like the least, but that you know you get a lot of benefit from?
Really fast stuff. 400-800m repeats that are almost all out. This helps my form and economy, but they stink to do.
What interests do you have outside of running?
I am pretty obsessed with one thing at a time. I took 6.5 years completely off of competitive running. In that time, I became an excellent skier, a crappy-but-determined rock climber and guitar player, and a pretty good golfer. Running to maintain general health is all I was concerned about- 20miles a week from 3-4 runs. Now I am determined to do everything I can to reach my running potential. I see medical school as a finite window of opportunity because residency will not accomodate the training I am doing. But I am learning not to obsess about running too much. I think that is partly to blame for some sleep trouble I have had before big races lately. When I am too focused, my wife keeps me honest.
How does WorkoutLog make your life easier?
Workout Log has allowed me to easily record my daily training and then look at it from a macroscopic/big picture vantage point. By graphing my whole year, I can spot trends and think about a training block as a whole. I enjoy this because it can be tempting to get caught up in one week’s mileage, but what develops me over time is the quality of the entire block. Workout Log allows me to do this. If you are lucky enough to have a coach, as we are, it is also great to have one’s training thoughts easily accessible to the coach, allowing for better communication.
You took an extended break from running for a while. What did you learn about yourself and your running during that time?
In college, I told myself that if I ran sub-30 minutes for the 10k, I would really devote myself to running for a few years after college and see where it took me. I ran 30:14. So, I put up the spikes and headed out to Denver to work for a Christian sports organization, SportsLife, run by a friend of mine. Thus began a nomadic journey. From then until the fall of 2006, I lived in Denver, Boulder, North Carolina, and Washington, DC. All along the way, I thought about getting back into running, but I didn’t ever have the desire or the comraderie in running that makes all of this more fulfilling. I stayed in decent shape, but I didn’t run over 7 miles for 5 years. Though I had exceeded my coach’s expectations, I knew I had not realized my full potential. A couple of years ago, I started running long runs with a friend at Umstead. I would run 15 miles on Saturday and not run the rest of the week but realized then that I had lost very little natural speed (of the very little I was born with) and actually gained some strength. Slowly, running became fun again. The more I ran, the more I wanted to do. Once the more difficult half of third year of medical school was behind me, I started training again in earnest. That was a year ago and now PRs are starting to come.
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01.05.08
Posted in Interview at 12:02 am by Dave
Tell us a little about yourself.
Oh gosh. I have a hard time with this. I am 24 years old and recently moved to NC ( 1.5 years ago). I am originally from Southern California, Garden Grove (right near Disneyland) and went to college at Boston University. I love Jesus. But, i also love to do things outdoor and anything fun. I enjoy cooking and reading in my spare time or doing crafty things. I like being random, helping others, and doing anything that is considered “being a kid.” I don’t feel I really lived up to my child potential during my childhood, so I’m trying to squeeze it all in now.
When and how did you get started running?
In high school, I was a swimmer and attempted to swim for BU, but was not given the chance by the coach, so I went out for the rowing team. I walked on and rowed for two years, with my second year as a 4B Varsity boat. My Novice Crew coach was who got me into running and the city of Boston in general. I began running on my own my freshman year and connected with a Christian and middle distance athlete my Sophomore year. This is how I got connected to BU’s track and distance team. My Junior year after I hiatus-ed myself from Crew and then gave it up to pursue school and begin the Triathlon club with a friend, my track running buddy asked if I wanted to join the team. I turned her down at first, but she asked me again three months later and said she had spoken to the coach about me, so I prayed a bit about it and went to see the coach. The team would winter train for a week in CA every year, not too far from where I lived, so I met up with them on afternoon for what I thought would be a trail long run - it turned into a track trial workout and thus I began running for BU.
What types of races do you feel suit your strengths?
Long distance. The longer the better is what I always say. I could always hold out at a higher threshold for a longer period of time, so I figured in the end if the distance is long enough the other person would get tired and/or break and I would just sail on by. So…5K preferably 10K, but I think maybe the Half-Marathon would really be my forte - that is if I ever get around to running one.
What type of workout gives you the most confidence?
I think the long run also gives me a lot of confidence because once I really started doing them and challenging myself to run longer, I felt a huge jump in fitness or strength after each one and that is really confidence boosting. But, I still think the hills are the biggest confidence booster. Arg. bring it on!
What type of workout do you like the least, but that you know you get a lot of benefit from?
HILLS! hahaha. Joan asked a similar question when joining the team and I said hills. I still don’t know if this is entirely true though after this past season. Now, I kind of look forward to grinding up them, however to answer two Q’s in one - I know I gain a lot of benefit and confidence from these because if I can survive Joan’s hills without sustaining a season ending injury - then I am an animal and anything thrown my way (including a hill in a race) will probably be cake compared to anything I’ve been challenged to, slopped through, and ran before.
What interests do you have outside of running?
Whew. My interests outside running are so many! Church and God are essential pieces - listening to KLOVE radio or worship, just walking in His beautiful creation of the world and sunshine. Also, as I mentioned before I like to cook and experiment within that. I love creating good, healthy food, but I am lactose intolerant, so much of my cooking is experimenting in how to make it healthier, low-fat, milk free, but still amazing to eat and see. I love to read! and I love to explore new places, cities, restaurants, activities, anything really. I love to shop (nowadays its more browsing than shopping), but I love fashion and art - the eye aesthetics really - however one of my other weird things is grocery shopping - I could seriously walk around a grocery store, especially if it’s a specialty store, for a few hours and be completely enthralled.
How does WorkoutLog make your life easier?
Oh it’s so much easier! First of all I don’t have to remember to bring a book somewhere with me. I am still a creature of habit and tend to write the workout down first, but then putting it up is so much easier and now I can track things like mileage and gear wear-out. I love the health and sleep aspects that I can also note in there - especially so Joan knows and can understand why some of my workouts may occur they way they do (due to life circumstances) - I think that will when looking back later really come in handy for noticing positive training patterns that connect with certain lifestyle patterns. Mostly though it gives me confidence that if I am somewhere for an extended period of time Joan and I can still be in contact concerning my training. Plus, it’s neat to go and see other athletes profiles. I filled mine out completely because shamelessly I do occasionally look for other hot, single male athletes in my area. (maybe, i shouldn’t really confess to that).
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10.23.07
Posted in Interview at 12:13 pm by Dave
Tell us a little about yourself, Diana.
Such a broad inquiry! I grew up an only child in Santa Rosa, CA and graduated from Montgomery High school in 1998. Given that my parents are originally from Vermont (mom) and Maine (dad), I decided I wanted to go to college on the East Coast to explore my roots a bit. I decided on Amherst College and graduated in 2002. When I made that decision, though, I didn’t know at that point that my parents would leave CA! Had I known that, I may have been swayed to go to Berkeley instead…
Currently, I’m pursuing my PhD in clinical psychology at UNC. I received my masters in the spring, so if all goes well, I have three more years until I do my internship, at which point I’ll be awarded my PhD. I’m specializing in children/adolescents, and do research examining the influence of peers on adolescents’ adoption of risky dieting behaviors.
When and how did you get started running?
I was always interested in sports, but somehow my mom always managed to miss soccer sign-ups! But, I managed to convince her to let me add running track to my already long list of after-school interests and activities in eight grade. I went to practice twice a week, managed to place in the city-wide meet, and haven’t looked back since. Slowly, the other after-school interests faded while my interest in running grew. I continued to run in high school (where I ran against people like Julia Stamps and Sara Hall (formerly Bei) on a weekly basis), then college. I needed a break after college and ran on my own a bit until I came down here for grad school in 2005 and felt refreshed and ready to dive back into the sport.
What types of races do you feel suit your strengths? (1500, marathon, etc)
Although I love mid-distance events (especially the 800 and 1000), I have a feeling I’m not best suited to them. After the state track meet my senior year of high school, at which I’d performed well, but wasn’t ever going to challenge Lindsey Hyatt who had been running under 2:10 since her freshman year, my coach said to me “You know, you could have been someone in the 2 mile!” Since college I’ve tried the 10K, which I find long and painful and the half-marathon during which I lose my head around 9 miles (although, neither of these experiences mean I couldn’t be good at these events). So, that brings me back to the 2 mile-ish distance, at least for track. I think Larry might have been on to something there!
What type of workout gives you the most confidence?
That depends on the season. If I’m training for xc, then something like what we did a couple weeks ago where we did 2 x Pumpkin Loop (a hilly 4k trail loop) or mile-ish repeats on an xc-type surface give me confidence that I can power up and through difficult courses. If it’s track season and I’m training for mid-distance, running a few quality 300s and 400s gives me confidence that I have my approximate race pace programmed and I only have to worry about racing because everything else is already there.
What type of workout do you like the least, but that you know you get a lot of benefit from?
I’m not a huge tempo run fan. I didn’t really have to do them in high school or college (or maybe they were disguised?). I often find them grueling and kind of uninteresting. But, I know that they can really help me in practicing staying mentally tough, gaining strength, and building confidence.
What interests do you have outside of running?
Does volunteering with the Carrboro High School xc team count as “outside of running?” I have a secret love of celebrity gossip, how about that? More seriously, I love being outside and wish I had more time to camp and hike and explore Western NC. I always keep an eye out for interesting exhibits at the NC Museum of Art. I love to travel and mourn the fact that my graduate student stipend does not really provide for international travel. I have lots of side interests (like reading, knitting, baking), but between being a grad student, running, and maintaining a healthy home/social life, I don’t have a lot of time to spend doing them right now.
How does WorkoutLog make your life easier?
WorkoutLog is great because it motivates me to keep track of everything. I have tried over the years to keep a running log and I forget, or I lose it, or I don’t record important things like if something started hurting. WorkoutLog has awesome graphs (I love graphical presentations of data!) and you can see what your month looked like in terms of training (although sometimes I don’t really want to see that!). It’s also a nice way to get my information to Joan — she doesn’t have to worry about tons of emails coming in from her athletes and she can look at it whenever is convenient for her. It has actually helped me improve my training — it became clear I was running too fast on non-workout days. Since I’ve worked on slowing those days down, my workouts are more quality and I have more to give during races.
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10.09.07
Posted in Interview, Jeuland's Musings at 7:32 am by Dave
Tell us a little about yourself, Marc.
I was born and grew up in Chicago, in a multicultural household. My mother is American and from a small town in southeast Kansas; my father is from the region of Brittany in France. My siblings (an older sister and younger brother) and I were raised bilingual, and were enrolled in a French-American school from an early age. We traveled to France often for summer vacations, and these trips instilled in me an adventurous spirit, and a real passion and desire to see and experience new things.
I graduated from Lincoln Park High School in 1997 and moved to Swarthmore College in the fall of that year. My sister, also a Swarthmore alum, inspired me to choose that small liberal arts college, emphasizing its strengths: excellent teaching, the presence of professors devoted to undergraduate education, the intellectual nature of the community, and the natural beauty of the campus. My Swarthmore years (following a strong
foundational education at Lincoln Park High School) would indeed give me confidence and refine the analytic thought processes of my mind. These things helped me in turn to find my place as a PhD student in graduate school (at UNC-Chapel Hill).
Swarthmore, however, did leave me with a feeling of having a bit of an empty heart. The activism on campus often did not appeal to me, for various reasons, and after graduating in 2001 I joined the Peace Corps as a water and sanitation engineer. I was thrilled to learn that I would be sent to Mali, in French-speaking West Africa, and I soon made my home in its capital city, Bamako. In Mali, I learned many cultural lessons and found a subject I could be passionate about:
delivering water services to people in poor countries. I worked on various projects in Bamako, the most important of which was to design a pilot-scale low-tech natural pond system for treating sewage collected from latrines. Though I am not certain this project was ever fully successful in alleviating any major sanitation problems in Bamako, the experience gave me new-found appreciation for the importance and difficulty of solving such problems in the developing world. My graduate research has allowed me to explore
a number of health and water-related policy problems, from economic evaluation of vaccines, to the evaluation of rural water supply projects in Africa and South America, to planning problems in the Nile River basin.
When and how did you get started running?
I grew up playing soccer, a sport at which I was rather mediocre. My greatest strength on the field was my ability to run and wear down opponents over the course of a long game, which explains why I was often placed in the midfield and considered a playmaker. I could not really score, so was never considered much of an offensive threat unless I could play the ball to someone more adept at finding the back of the net, and I was really not much of a defender either. My junior year, my brother (who was then
a freshman in high school) decided he wanted to join the track team in the spring, and asked me if I would accompany him. I agreed. We started running. Over the course of that year, I discovered that I might make a pretty decent distance runner. Lincoln Park HS, and other public schools in Chicago, however, did not have much in terms of facilities and coaching for sports teams. Our coach, Ms. Wallace, was a converted gym teacher, who did not have any particular expertise or affinity for running, but who
did enjoy working with students and wanted us to have the opportunity to compete. We would run on a track 45 minutes from school for meets; otherwise, we ran around the halls of the school (when the weather was bad or the days were short) or a small neighborhood park near the school. I think I probably ran about 15-20 miles a week while in high school, and was proud to make the state meet in the 2 mile run my senior year (running a 10:33 and finishing dead last by a lot, purely because my qualifying section
- the city - was so weak).
I ran track and cross country in college, abandoning soccer after one unfulfilling college season as a freshman at Swarthmore. At Swarthmore, I struggled to find something I could be passionate about with my studies and work, and to find the aspects of my life that gave me energy. In such an academic and ideologically-charged environment, I felt like those around me really scorned the things I found valuable personally (such as running and religion).
What types of races do you feel suit your strengths?
For me, this question is easy. I feel like I most excel at the longer distance events. I run efficiently but not powerfully, and I have a small frame. I have had the most success at the marathon distance, though my times in shorter events have improved since I switched to focus on the longer races. I still think I can improve.
What type of workout gives you the most confidence?
The workout that gives me the most confidence is my weekly long run. I feel like its benefits are twofold. For one, I teach my body to endure the grueling pain of running something very similar to a marathon. My long runs typically take me over challenging terrain, with rolling hills or sometimes steep uphills and downhills. If I can maintain a steady pace for two + hours once a week, I think that the marathon is not such a big deal anymore. Secondly, a hard long run requires me to take it easy once a week, and
to stay dedicated to a yoga practice of stretching and relaxation on Mondays. While I sometimes run shorter distances on Monday to accompany the yoga, this dedication to planned and necessary recovery is what enables me to tackle each week’s mileage total with a fresh mind and fresh legs.
I like speed workouts that force me to increase my effort throughout, but that do not throw me over the edge so that I end up tanking at the end. Thus, I like workouts that focus on cutting rest while I am still fresh, and then perhaps lengthen it as I tire, all while getting faster or staying consistent on the time spent running the intervals. I also have always liked steady workouts: i.e. mile repeats at a fast but manageable pace, or fartlek workouts that follow a predictable route and pattern. I do not do
well with very large pace fluctuations, and my ability to run anaerobically is not very good.
What type of workout do you like the least, but that you know you get a lot of benefit from?
Probably mile repeats with pace changes on the track, although I am not sure if they give me high benefits. In general, I am not entirely sure what works best in my speed and strength sessions.
What interests do you have outside of running?
I enjoy working on the Board of Outreach and Service at my church, working with a Burmese refugee family adopted by the church, watching movies with friends or my wife, doing crossword puzzles, and trying new restaurants or recipes.
How does WorkoutLog make your life easier?
WorkoutLog is most useful for communicating regularly with our coach. The fact that she can check what I am doing daily and keep tabs on aches and pains or any other issues without explaining a sequence of events over email is really important. I also like the fact that you can add information on your running routes and keep track of your times over a specific loop throughout and across training cycles.
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