Running Unattached

Preamble:

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I came out of high school running a 4:07 1500 and 9:32 3200, and despite recieving a few offers from schools, opted to go to UC Berkeley, and run unattached in hopes of making the team. I haven’t achieved that quite yet, but I’ve had massive improvements since high school, despite running without a team or coach. This post will talk about how I achieved this, what I’d reccomend for different situations, and what I wish I did better.

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Thank You’s:

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Running unattached is HARD. But while I did run unattached this past year, I was never alone. A massive thank you to those who supported me and gave me company when I didn’t have a team, I wouldn’t be where I am without these people:

• My Dad coming to all my races
• My girlfriend Rhea supporting me after every win or loss
• My training partner Tad Kawabata
• Everybody on Chabot XC -> Especially Brian Kirrane and Kyle Robinson
• Everybody on CSUMB XC -> Especially Alex Fernandes and Alexis Lorenzana
• My former high school team DVHS -> Especially Arrin Sagiraju + Eshaan Hussain (Basically a DVHS Athlete)
• My high school club coach: Louis Kao & SecondWind Team
• Strawberry Canyon Running Club -> Especially Cisco
• My Older High School Teammates who ran in college -> Lucas Badcock, Ashraf Abdelmagid, Ian Dickenson, David Abdelmalek, Chinmaya Salinamakki, Alex Fernandes
• My silly double buddies Liana and Abby

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Find a Team / Training Partner

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• Running alone is really hard. Consistently waking up everyday and going for a run alone, without anybody to hold you accountable is really hard to maintain over a long period of time.
• You’ll make lots of friends!
• Coaching yourself can be difficult, you’ll question your fitness too often, constantly wonder if you’re going too hard or not hard enough.
• While I did run alone or with only one other person for my entire freshman year, I’d say it’s very difficult for most people.

So where do I find a team??

• Your school probably has a running club!
  • They’re not always very well organized and sometimes hardly exist.
  • Some schools with Fabulous running clubs are:
    • Cal Poly
    • UC Davis
    • Virginia Tech
• Local Running Clubs!
  • Strawberry Canyon is a Berkeley based running group that features mostly Berkeley students, but isn’t a UCB Club
• Go run! Find people on the trails and talk to them!
• Check Strava Segments and Follow people
• Fun Story: The first running friend I made in Berkeley, Calvin, I met the day after move-in. I was going for a morning run, and found him coming back from his morning run, in Chiknlegs short shorts.
  • At first I thought it was a crazy coincidence, but then I realized how likely it was that any runners would be going for their runs before orientation started, and be exiting the same building at the same time.
  • While it may be embarrasing to trot around your building in short-shorts, that’s the quickest way to find other runners

CC Team

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One unique opportunity that many people don’t know about, is running for your local community college. All you have to do is enroll in the bare minimum amount of units to be considered a student, and you’re free to compete under their team!

• You can take easy General Education Classes that are Fully Online to knock out Degree Requirements
• You get the benefits of a team, and a coach, and your meet fees and travel will be paid for!
• Not every coach will be willing to do this, but you should definitely reach out and ask!
• This also allows you to compete later into the season
  • Usually I have to shutdown my seasons earlier, because NCAA’s and Conference Champs roll around, and I have no team to compete for.

I was offered by Kyle Robinson to run for the Chabot team, and was going to join them this Cross Country season until Kyle stepped down from coaching, but I did still train a good amount with his team and enjoyed it thoroughly.

This is a lot easier than you’d think, simple CC classes will only take about 1 hour per week!

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Training

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Golden Rule: The best training, is the training you can successfully sustain

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• Find a training style that works for you!
• Do you not have time to run loads of miles?
• How many workouts can you make time for in one week?
• Do you like doing more easy mileage?
• Can you find a coach?
  • Reach out to coaches, you’d be surprised that many are more than happy to help out!
    • Shout-out Granada HS coaches, Jeremey and Noel Mattern, for helping me with Double Threshold.

I would highly reccomend finding a coach in a training style that you enjoy. There’s lots of coaches that can help you online (runccg, vdot, etc), and it’s very worth it for most people. Coaching yourself is a headache, and won’t end well.

For me, I found myself doing best in a double threshold training style. While I do want to write a post in of itself elaborating on why, here’s the main details:

• I never have to go above a 7-8/10 effort alone
  • This makes training much more mentally digestible
  • I could go into workouts feeling confident and relaxed instead of nervous
  • I can’t do 10/10 efforts well on my own
• I had a class schedule that allowed me to Run -> Eat -> Class -> Eat -> Nap -> Run
• I could do more workouts on the treadmill (more on this later)
• I gained so much confidence knowing I did 2 workokuts a day.
  • Confidence makes you faster than any training plan can
• My body handles double workouts and high mileage very well
  • I often felt even better on the second workout than the first one

Just remember there’s no one-size-fits-all training approach. Now that you can choose what to do, you should really focus on doing the training that works best for you. Don’t kill yourself! Training isn’t meant to be incredibly hard

Note: If there’s a run club that does a different training style than you’re used too, I’d reccomend trying training with people first, over doing training alone. If you really hate the training you can always go back

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Racing

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You should plan your races early. Now that you’re in charge, you only have to race what you want too, and can build your training entirely around your goal races. How you choose to race is very different depending on you and where you are, but here’s some helpful tips for choosing a racing schedule

How Many Races

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• For the 1500m, it takes about 4-6 races to reach your full potential in the event.
  • This peak can only be held for about 3-4 races max
  • Each increase in distance 1500 -> 3k -> 5k -> 10k, it takes one less race to reach full potential
  • This is from my club coach Louis Kao, and I’ve found to be incredibly accurate
• Plan your season around this so you peak at your most important races
  • Do NOT over-race yourself
• For XC, try to do between 3-6 8k’s, but definitely no more than 6, which is already stretching it.
• For Track, try to go over and under distance during the season to improve your main event.
  • Ex: a good 1500m runner, will run a few 3k/5k’s for strength earlier in the season, and run an 800m later in the season to sharpen before championships roll around

Traveling For Races

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Traveling as an unattached runner will get expensive VERY quickly. I highly reccomend trying to stay local for as many meets as possible, and save traveling for big important meets.

• If you live far away from home, try and find meets back in your home-town area, so you can go back home and get a race in at the same time
• I reccomend saving travel races for track instead of XC
  • XC you can always find Local Road Races or step up to the half marathon
• If you find a club team, its often very easy to setup a carpool to races.
  • Team Carpools to races are some of my most memorable moments in running

Going to Races

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Once you arrive to the race, there are a few things different that you may notice…

• Where do I put my stuff ??
  • It pays to be friends with some athletes on your school team, as they will likely let you keep your things at their tent
• There’s usually an unattached box for Cross Country
  • Talk to the people there! Make friends with unattached athletes
• Do a long cooldown!
  • People are usually nervous on the starting line or on the warm-up, but will be incredibly friendly and nice on the post-race cooldown. It’s a great time to make friends!
• If you ever see Cal Poly DC or UC Davis Run Club, go talk to them!
  • They’re the nicest runners I’ve ever met, and they make great warmup/cooldown buddies
  • At Bronco last year, Cal Poly DC brought a tent when the Cal Poly school team didn’t…
• Wear a cool uniform!
  • I’ve seen unattached runners wear everything from crop tops to fortnite onesies… go crazy!
    • Side note: I almost lost to a guy in a fortnite singlet at Bronco 2023
      • He did beat like 2 guys from UC Santa Barbara

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Niche Tips

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Here’s some tips that didn’t quite fit in a particular section, but are definitely worth knowing:

• Everybody gets sick the first week of college
  • It may or may not hinder your first race, but just have fun and do it anyways!
• Try the treadmill!
  • The treadmill became a huge staple in my training during college
  • I know a lot of people think its horrible and absolutely dread it, but just try it!
    • It’ll take about 5-7 runs to get used to it, but then paces start to feel normal, and the miles fly by!
  • It lets you workout late at night without having to worry about it being dark out!
  • Every college has a gym that you can use for free
  • Meet other runners on the treadmills!
  • Use the Incline to go lower impact on the legs
  • It’s very convenient
    • I had a class that I never attended, and watched the lectures exclusively on the treadmill.
      • Don’t go that extreme though… or at least don’t blame me for the results
• Email meet directors!
  • A lot of times, meet directors can bend qualifying times or entry fees for you if you tell them about your situation.
    • They’re usually very kind to unattached athletes, and often waive entry fees
  • It’s great to have people on your side for future opportunities
  • You never know until you try :)
• Race your old high school teammates!
  • I always pulled up my old high school now in college teammates schedules, to see if I could try and race against them!
    • It made racing feel so fun again and evaporated all my nerves
    • Shoutout Alex Fernandes who I am 0-2 against in the collegiate circuit but 6-1 against in high school
• Get Ear Plugs + Eye Mask if you have problematic roomates…

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Last Advice

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Running Unattached is HARD. I was fortunate to have lots of support, and already had lots of experience training alone, but it still wasn’t easy. But it has ALWAYS been worth it.

It’s okay to struggle and miss days, you are where most people quit, but the desicion to keep going, is what will separate you from most people

I’ve always believed that what I get is preparation to make me the person I’m meant to be. If I made the team right away, I would’ve missed a lot of important lessons I learned while running on my own.

Have Fun! Enjoy being free to do whatever you want! Make friends with runners who aren’t on a college team, they usually have great perspectives on life (Shoutout Eva Shen if she is reading this)

Take Videos and Pictures of yourself when you can, I miss having a team photographer, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take pictures! It helps you look back and see how much you’ve changed.

Find ways to run championship-style races! It’s really fun and a different twist on racing!

• U20 Cross Country Champs

Think about how much strength and confidence you will gain from doing great things entirely on your own! Everyday I remind myself that I have the strength to move mountains on my own

Once again, HAVE FUN

• Read my story about treadmill workouts

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Appendix A: Silly Unattached Stories

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Treadmill Running:

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Many times I will be doing a treadmill workout at threshold pace, and people will look at me in awe of how quick and humble I am (They’re looking at me funny because I’m shirtless in booty shorts)

Sometimes, they ask me something along the lines of “What’s the Secret?” or “How do you get so fast?”

I used to brag about my latest mileage pr, or talk about how I only take about 5-10 days off in a calendar year, but lately my mantra has stayed the same. I always smile and say:

You Gotta Love Doing It

And they see my face, my smile, the utter glee coming out of my face from having finished another good workout, and they know I mean it.

My First Race:

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My first unattached race was USF Invite. It went horribly. I was sick, and had classes that day, and barely slept, but I learned a lot and still had a lot of fun!

When I first got there, I realized I had nowhere to put my stuff. It was the first time I had even thought about the fact that I had no team to put my stuff with, and it honestly got to me.

It was such a simple thing you take for granted when you have a team, but something I miss dearly.

I miss walking back from a race and having my teammates ask me how it went.

Even when they were sprinters or jumpers, and had no idea what my time meant or whether it was fast, they still wanted to know how it went, and wanted to see me succeed

Obviously nobody is rooting against me anymore, and all my friends still want to see me succeed, but something about walking back from a race and getting to hug my teammates while I was still in the moment, is a feeling I will forever cherish, and never take for granted

I did do a long cooldown with the Berkeley team, which was fun. They’re a great group of people to talk too

Beating Division 1 Runners:

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Bronco 2023 was the first race where I hit my stride decently, and managed to beat a handful of Division 1 Runners.

It was an incredibly satisfying feeling, even though we are all the same at our core. But still, it made me truly feel like I belonged, and was a very good end to the shaky first season I had.

Shoutout Dheeraj Gurusamy who was a good sport about it, and absolutely wiped me in track, I look forward to racing him again :)

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Appendix B: California Races to Run

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Note: This is based on 2023 racing calendar, I will add more races as I find them, but these are ones I’ve done or have seen others do. Some are obviously better than others, either by organization or the competition, or overall course, so do research on the race before-hand.

XC Season:

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September:

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• Sep 1: USF Invite @ Golden Gate Park
• Sep 1: Big West Preview @ Cal Poly
• Sep 9: Kim Duyst Twighlight @ River Oaks Golf Course, Ceres
• Sep 15th: Stump Invite @ UC Davis
• Sep 16th: UCR Invite @ UCR
• Sep 22: George Brooks Invite @ Hidden Valley Park, Martinez
• Sep 22: Dellinger Invite @ Oregon
• Sep 23rd: Cougar Invite @ San Marcos
• Sep 28th: Chabot Twighlight Track 5k @ Chabot (Now Kyle Robinson Invite or something like that)

October:

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• Oct 1: San Jose Rock n Roll 5k/10k/Half/Marathon
• Oct 6: SF State Invite @ Golden Gate Park
  • Much more cursed course than USF
• Oct 14: Bronco Invite @ Santa Clara Area
• Oct 14th: Highlander Invite @ UCR
• Oct 20: Titan Invitational @ Fullerton

Track Season:

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Note: some meets require a qualifiying time

February

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• Feb 3rd: Cal All Comers @ UCB
• Feb 17th: Cal All Comers #2 @ UCB
• Feb 24th: Chabot Preview @ Chabot
• Feb 29th: Texas Relays @ UT

March

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• Mar 2nd: Beach Opener @ Long Beach State
• Mar 2nd: West Coast Twighlight @ Chabot
• Mar 9th: Aggie Open @ UCD
• Mar 9th: Occidental Invite @ Occidental College
• Mar 9th: Ben Brown Invite @ Fullerton
• Mar 9th: Wildcat Invite @ Chico State
• Mar 16th: Cardinal Classic
• Mar 22nd: Mangrum Invite @ San Marcos
• Mar 23rd: Aztec Invite @ SDSU
• Mar 29th: Vince O’Boyle Classic @ UCI
• Mar 29th: Mike Fanelli Track Classic @ Chabot (Usually SF State)

April

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• Apr 6th: Brutus Hamilton @ UCB
• Apr 6th: Chabot Invitational @ Chabot
• Apr 13th: Johnny Mathis Invite @ SF
• Apr 13th: Brian Clay Invite @ Azusa
• Apr 20th: Laney Last Chance @ Laney College
• Apr 27th: Steve Scott Invite @ UCI

May

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• May 4th: Oxy Invite @ Occidental College
• May 11th: Franson Last Chance @ Azusa Pacifica
• May 18th: Redlands Last Chance