Happy Wednesday everyone. Today we have the pleasure to learn more about the ever dapper /u/runjunrun. Before we get started, I have a couple quick notes:

1 - Thread format and questions have now changed. This week is a trial of not including any questions for thread. Feel free to post general discussion topics as well and let me know how the question free format is working out.

2 - /u/artcbot now responds to private messages which will hopefully cut down on bot spam.

How/when did you start running?

A friend of mine ran Boston in 2013. I’d just moved to the city a year before from San Francisco, and barely even knew that Boston Marathon was a thing. But we spent the day off from work drinking at a friend’s apartment on Commonwealth Ave., right where the runners come up from the tunnel a few blocks away from the fabled Right On Hereford turn. We went to catch her finishing, walking back and forth near the finish, when the bombs went off.

I ran because it felt correct in the weeks that followed. The BAA opened up bibs in 2014 to people who felt affected by the bombings. I wrote them a short letter about what had happened and how it got me running and how running changed me, and they handed me a bib. I trained through that winter (I think I peaked at like 45MPW) and ran Boston 2014 in 3:23. And I’ve been pretty hooked ever since.

What are your PRs?

2:59:49 for the marathon. Everything else is soft and I haven’t really raced other distances in years, so I can’t even recall what those PRs would be. But I hope to spend 2018 in pretty serious training mode and to target PRs in the 5K (like barely sub-20?), 10K (39 high?), and half (I think it’s like 1:31 or something).

Favorite shoes to train or race in?

Pegasus for just about 80%. I do track/short work in Lunar Racers. Love the Elite 9s. Clifton 3s are also in heavy-ish rotation.

What's your next race?

Boston 2018. Get hype!

What is your favorite distance to race and why?

I guess the marathon is a fun way to torture oneself. I really hate the 5k. This year, the goal is to mix it up and do some of the shorter stuff to get a bit better used to running fast.

What are your goals this year?

2:55 at Boston would be fun. I’d also like to add a 100 miler into the mix if I hit my A goal in April. Crush some years-old PRs, too.

Proudest running accomplishment?

Probably training for that first marathon. I didn’t know what I was doing, and had only been running for a few months. I didn’t know many other runners. So I just sort of futzed around alone, getting lost, getting caught in snowfall, learning to put miles in.

Turning onto Boylston Street and hearing the roar of the jam-packed sidewalks, and bonking in a bad way, I just wanted to be done. But a thought kept echoing in my head, that I’d rather die than run anything less than my absolute best for that stretch. I’d never, ever felt that sort of drive before.

When I think about how much running has given me and how much it changed me for the better, I think about how it felt to be in that moment at the closing of a perfectly symmetrical narrative circle for not just myself but for an entire city.

What do you do outside of running?

I run marketing at a startup (clarahealth.com, give us some traffic and tell your friends and fam). I also write a daily-ish email called One Decent Fucking Thing (onedecentfuckingthing.com) that’s sort of an examination of politics and my own personal history as an immigrant/minority/whatever, and the lessons I’ve been learning lately. You should sign up!

What other hobbies/interests do you have?

I play guitar and I’m a pretty big music nerd. I write. I cook. I sing karaoke. I try to dress decently in a city that rewards terrible fashion choices. I get really angry about the Patriots and their fans.

One could say that I’m a 21st century renaissance man.

What is your favorite route/place to run?

There’s a steep hill that winds around a grove of trees on your way to Jamaica Pond. When I run the route up and around the pond, I imagine Bill Rogers running the same paths alone and in the cold in the 70s, and it shoots distilled, potent gratitude straight into my heart, no matter how bad of a day I might have been having.

Do you have a favorite run/race that you’ve ever done?

Boston was amazing. I won a tiny 10K in Provincetown this summer that gave me a $100 gift card to get boozed up on, and a couple of the guys who got second and third came up to me and said, “GIRL, you were so FAAAAST” and it made me feel really pretty and special.

If you could run anywhere in the world with anyone in the world, alive or dead, where would you run and who would you run with?

Emily Infeld. I think she’d really like me. She’d laugh at all my amazing jokes and think I was so friggin cool.

Yeah. She’d be so into me.

Yeah.

…yup.

What do you think has been the greatest contributor to your success in running?

The biggest leap my running took was when I began posting here and met so many of the folks who put in miles with me in person and through the wonderfully horrible source of neurosis that is Strava. So that, and my bottomless self-loathing and manic nature, probably.

What is your favorite post long run food?

A big bowl of white rice and some runny eggs, doused in soy sauce and hot sauce.

If you had a year to train, with no other distractions, how fast do you think you could get?

Probably not that fast. I don’t have a ton of natural ability. I’d like to one day hit a 2:45 marathon, so let’s just say that I could get into that neighborhood if I had a year.

Favorite subreddits?

This one and r/gallifrey where I provide some truly shitty Doctor Who takes.

Origin of your username?

Last name Jun. Rhymes with run.

Strava link if you use it? https://www.strava.com/athletes/7318256