Sam Bruns (they/them) finds a welcoming racing community

How has your experience with RCTC been so far?

It's been great! I joined the club looking for some community centered around training and racing and have found that and more. People have been super friendly and welcoming, and it's been awesome to have the chance to train with such strong and dedicated teammates.

Why do you run in the first place?

My journey to endurance athletics ran through bike racing, but once I started running more seriously I realized I had a whole different level of love and obsession with the sport. My personality is really all or nothing when it comes to hobbies, and running is the first sport I've found where I can give it as much energy as I have and get even more given back. I also just love the feeling of running, whether it's a smooth recovery jog on grass or ripping intervals on the track.

As someone who has been immersed in both cycling and running culture, what are your observations about each?

Cycling culture can sometimes be a bit image driven in my experience. Everybody wants to have the fresh kit, the sweet bike, the eyeball popping FTP so that everyone will think you're cool. I have never wanted to be cool so I switched to the least cool sport there is, distance running

What about running makes you laugh?

The silliness of it all! It's absurd that we spend so much effort running in circles (often literally) in hopes of traveling an arbitrary distance arbitrarily fast – and yet it's one of the most important parts of my life, go figure.

Any goals this year? Both athletic and personal!

I'd really like to break 17:30 for 5k, taking another shot at that at Bowerman 5k soon! Other than that, consistent training and improvement is always my main goal. On a personal level I feel like I've been falling behind on meeting cute dogs this year and need to put some more effort in there.

How have your opinions about training evolved over the years?

When I started running I was mostly just messing around and didn't have any real training philosophy. I started getting more interested in training when I got obsessed with Sweat Elite videos on youtube. Watching pros do different workouts based on their event and strengths helped me realize that there's a whole world of running training knowledge out there to explore. Lately I've been trying to follow some of the principles of the Ingebrigtsen brothers and other fast Norwegians, "running as fast as possible as often as possible" while rarely emptying the tank on any single rep or workout.

Anything else you'd like to share?

For me being out as a nonbinary athlete feels really important. I've gotten so much out of seeing representation from other queer athletes and knowing that there's a place for me in the sport, especially at a competitive level. RCTC and Portland in general have both been great for me being more public in my identity and how it shapes my experience as a runner.