The Process: Running to the Heartland
This will seem a little different than the typical story you find here.
Considering how to create a story around the timeline leading up to The Heartland Half Marathon, I decided to allow the audience to see how the sausage is made — or at least give a little peak into the process.
I hate the word “I”. My goal has always been to tell your stories. So, how do I (cringe) avoid a first-person narrative but still let you in on a process and potentially tell a story along the way?
Many times stories simply begin with a subject and an action — someone is doing something. That is a story in and of itself.
And that is okay.
But sometimes, there is something more. During the process, through conversations, observations and intuitions, those initial points of interest become something wholly different.
I never really know if that is going to happen. Maybe that will happen in this series, but just like when I begin the process of exploring any story, I really don’t know where this is going to go.
But you are invited to come along.
Here we go.
About four months ago, I added the words “Downtown Fitness Running Group” to the note labeled “Stories” on my phone.
“Stories” haunts me. It greets me daily on my home screen. Sometimes, I immediately swipe to the next page, my education and religion screen (I separate my phone screens into themes), to escape it.
These random ideas, as well as stories that are important for the community the Free Press serves, get placed on the list and checked off as they are completed.
My initial interest in the running group was simply that Jamie and KJ Jahn had hosted the running group on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. and Sunday mornings at 7 a.m. for a long time. Someone doing something with the added element of time, I knew there was something I could write about in that group.
“Downtown Fitness Running Club” wasn’t very high on my list until last week when the folks behind the Heartland asked about ideas for potential stories.
I ran with the group about two weeks ago and started hearing the different names of the attendees. Kurt Voelkel is known as Farmer — no other name, he’s just Farmer, according to Jamie.
Farmer because he is a farmer is a regular runner.
He was the first one through the door of Downtown Fitness & Running on Wednesday. After Enzo, Jamie’s new pup, finished greeting him, I introduced myself.
Since he is a farmer and I don’t know anything about farming, I asked him about farming.
He had mentioned his crops were burning in the field. When I asked about rain, he said they could use about two inches spread over three days, “not in a…” and he kinda spread his hands and dropped them quickly.
“Deluge,” I finished.
He should be happy today with over an inch forecast.
A few moments later, Ronald Monge, who had been missing from the group for two weeks while he was visiting family in El Salvador, stepped in the door to a warm greeting from Farmer. I’ve known Ronald since he was in middle school, and it was great to see him again.
He asked if I was going to run with them. I do plan on running the Heartland this year, but my training is on hiatus this week as my foot heals from some inflammation. I talked to him about his visit, and we caught up until KJ called everyone out to the sidewalk to warm up.
As they stretched, I grabbed a couple of frames and headed to the other side of the Square to set up for a shot of them going by. That is the frame that you saw earlier in the story.
I had thought that after they went by, I would head to the Riverwalk to set up for a photo, but I made a mistake. Jamie had posted a good map of the intended route for the run. Pretty confident in my memory of the map, I headed toward the 15th Street entrance to the Riverwalk.
Secure in my decision to get ahead of them at the 15th Street entrance, I drove up there knowing I could set up on the Riverwalk in a beam of perfectly hazy light to wait for them to appear.
After finding my spot, I stood there waiting, occasionally holding my camera up to check my frame. Folks passed by with friendly hellos, and one little girl on a bike asked me if I was taking photos of wildlife. I told her I was waiting for some folks to run by. Her dad said they had only seen squirrels and rabbits so far as they continued on.
As the time ticked by and more and more people passed me by, but none of the runners I was there to capture, something told me to check the map again.
I pulled out my phone and quickly determined I was on the wrong end of the Riverwalk to get my epic photo.
Heading up to the parking lot, I met the little girl who was looking for wildlife, and she informed me she had counted two squirrels and one rabbit. I mumbled something about writing it in her notebook and keeping an eye out for deer as I headed to my truck, knowing it would be difficult to capture any more good images.
Oh well.
The running group sprang from a training group created by Kenny Hochgesang and Phillip Wolf the first year the Heartland Half Marathon was held back in 2012. Kenny is the Jasper Fire Chief, and the group would meet at the Sixth Street Station before taking off on training runs. When Jamie and KJ opened Downtown Fitness & Running, they started hosting running sessions and training.
They have been meeting pretty much every week since then.
Jamie says the intention has always been to build a community of runners that encourage each other to keep going.
Though it was the first group training session for this year’s Heartland, only the usual suspects showed up Wednesday evening for the mapped 2.4-mile run.
“No one trains for the Heartland,” she joked. “They just show up and run.”
With this group, mileage doesn’t necessarily mean anything; most did five miles on Wednesday.
It is pretty casual — the fast runners run fast, and the slow runners run slow. Sometimes folks walk.
Everyone is welcome to show up for the training sessions. There is still plenty of time to get ready, and Jamie posted a training guide on the Downtown Fitness & Running Facebook page here if you are interested.
You can sign up to take part in the half or put a team together for the relay or just do the 5K. More details here.
To be continued…
Grammar and spelling mistakes are on purpose.
