Kevin Chaves on Building Running Community
A Bay Area native, Kevin grew up in Fremont before moving to the Peninsula and running for Saint Francis High School in Mountain View. At Occidental College he accumulated multiple conference and regional titles in the 5K and cross country, capped off by an All-American 7th-place finish at the Division III NCAA Cross Country Championships. Kevin returned to the Bay for his PhD in Religious Studies and Philosophy at Stanford, moving to Oakland as he finished up the doctorate. He’s a founding member of the Oakland Track Club, established in 2016 to provide runners of all levels the opportunity to train hard and race for a team.
Kevin, tell me a bit about the Oakland Track Club. What motivated you to help found the club?
Being part of a team in high school and college was a huge part of why I loved running so much, and I feel like ever since I left Oxy I have been building training groups and communities everywhere I went. I just love working out with people—the support you get from friendships created over shared passions and hours of hard work is invaluable in this sport!
When I moved to Oakland I immediately started looking for runners to join up with, and I’m very grateful for co-founders Alex Hancock, Ben Eversole, and Andrew Hao for taking me in on their Friday morning lake loops (still a club staple). As others started joining us, we began to see the huge potential for a running club built around Oakland’s already strong sense of community — after we stumbled upon a winning logo and printed a few singlets for Christmas Relays, the club took off!
Since then the club has grown considerably. What are your goals with OTC? Where would you like to see the club go?
My only real goal for OTC is for the club to continue to be a fun and inclusive space for runners to come together around a shared value of wanting to train and achieve their running goals. That can mean so many different things for different people, whether it’s jumping into the club’s regular schedule in working up to more consistent running, or training for that pesky half PR, qualifying for Boston, or sending a team to the USATF club national champs in XC.
Of course, as a competitive racer myself, I would love to see OTC become a force to contend with in the local competitive club scene — but it’s even more important for me to see OTC grow into its role in the broader community of Oakland, especially in working towards diversifying running club culture and making it more representative of the city we live in. I love the idea of hosting more events like our Winter Classic that partner with local schools and businesses, so when things become safer, we’ll definitely be putting effort there.
How are you approaching the community aspect of running in this moment? Obviously, much of running remains locked down amid the pandemic. Major races have been canceled into the autumn and group runs have mostly paused to avoid further viral spread. How do you think the pandemic will effect the running community?
Honestly, the club has pretty much gone into hibernation the last few months. There have been some virtual happy hours, and some friendly strava segment battles, but training itself has become a solitary thing for all of us right now. I really don’t know how all of this will affect the running community long term; of course there are large races still scheduled or being rescheduled for the fall, but I really don’t know when or even how any large scale gatherings like races will feel safe again.
I think one of the biggest things people have struggled with is a sense of aimlessness, or even timelessness, without clear goals to punctuate the monotony of the daily distance grind. We’re all finding new ways to mark the meaning of our training — we’ll probably see a lot more time trials (like my Lake Merritthon), a lot more “guerrilla racing” and creative competition well into 2021. There’s a lot of potential there, and I think community based clubs like OTC have a big part to play in that.
How has running fit into your own life during this time of uncertainty? How have you adapted?
I am lucky that, personally, this period of forced inwardness and solitude has been immensely healing. 2019 was quite literally the worst year of running in terms of health and consistency in my entire life, and my only goal going into the new year was to slow down, be patient, and build up my volume from scratch in a way I hadn’t done in years. I needed a hard reset, and this time has provided that for me. Ironically, as much as I love training with a group, I also love the quiet and contemplative nature of running alone day after day. It’s grounding for me to spend that time with myself (especially since I’m returning from my runs to my two young kids, who I love dearly, but who are also always there… always…).
Chaves, before the Lake Merritthon.
You recently ripped a 2:30 marathon, running nine laps around Oakland's Lake Merritt. What inspired the Lake Merritthon?
I lost touch with my desire to race a marathon after college, but my OTC teammates have been massively inspiring in that regard (as well as not-so-subtly encouraging); it’s definitely on account of them that I’ve started to have dreams of marathoning again. We had a huge crew (18-20 runners) set to run at Boston, and when the race was officially cancelled, we started to joke about holding an impromptu race that same weekend around the Lake —The Lake Merritthon!
Of course, it quickly became apparent that it was not a good idea to encourage any sort of group events, but the seed for me had been planted, and I thought that this could be the perfect low-pressure way for me to tackle a debut and a benchmark for any future training. This year it was just me, but—if only for the name alone—the Lake Merritthon is something I really want to return to again with the team and others when it’s safe. It was an absolute blast!
Follow Kevin on Strava. Learn more about the Oakland Track Club.
