Hey! Ron here from The Rockies in Alberta. I am a long distance running enthusiast and just recently earned a PR in my last half marathon race at 1h 44 min. I am a software development manager and love everything about Strava. I know software and their quality is top of class! As for cheese. As long as it isn’t blue I’ll eat it. Especially if it has jalapeños in it! 

Hi @RonC 

Just adding my welcome and thanks for joining our community!  Fellow Albertan here (Red Deer area), although I haven't lived there for quite some time.  I'm guessing you do mostly trail running, since you're in the mountains?  How do you cope with the snow or do you switch to indoor running for the winter?  

Hi and welcome along. Congrats on the PR that's an impressive time. I agree with you on the cheese front - I want to like blue cheese but I just can't bring myself to. I have however found the ones with ash in the middle to be quite tasty.

Hello everyone!

Am new to this chat, introducing myself. I live in Switzerland.

I started running during the first lockdown in the Covid pandemic, and since then I have more and more increased the frequency and intensity running. Not bad at my 60 years, and feeling well!

Looking forward good exchanges in this chat! 

Welcome @matcar97 thanks for sharing. Great to hear you've picked up a new activity recently. Switzerland has great cheese, what's your favorite?

Hey Jane. I still do mostly road with a bit of trail. I’m not the best on uneven terrain. As for winter, I run a lot at the track or on my treadmill. I really enjoy the iFIT sessions. 

Hi, everyone! I'm Craig from the Alabama Gulf Coast in the US. I decided to start running on my 49th birthday this past June. It has become very meditative for me and a great outlet for relieving stress. It makes me feel better about me and has been a huge benefit to my overall mental health. I completed my longest distance so far this past weekend, a 12K race. Just a matter of weeks ago I was intimidated by anything over 5K so I'm really excited to see how far I can improve. Nagging injuries to my hip and knee have started to slow my progress so I'm trying to learn to take better care of myself so I can keep running. I look forward to learning from you all!

I've never met a cheese I didn't like. The stinkier the better!

Hey Craig, it's great to hear from you, welcome to the Community! Have you tried out Recover Athletics for pre-hab? It's included with your Strava subscription and has targeted exercises for specific areas such as hips, patella tendon, etc. I highly recommend checking it out in the Strava mobile app!

I'm a road runner myself - I have an old ankle injury that activates whenever I run on uneven terrain. Are you currently training for any events or races?

Well, since I'm new I'll come say hi and... uh... talk about some cheese.

John here from Hawaii. Well, I'm FROM Hawaii, but I actually live near Seoul, South Korea. I've been living here for over a decade, mostly for my then-girlfriend-now-wife, but also because I wanted to be a teacher but didn't like the idea of being a teacher on my small island. Currently, I'm working at a foreign language high school here in Seoul teaching English while also working on my PhD at Seoul National University. I love my job as a high school teacher, but becoming a professor would be pretty great.

I've been running off-and-on for around 7 years. I started because I got roped into a 10k with some coworkers way back when and actually really enjoyed it. I'd always been a sports guy, but never a track guy. However, there was just something about the race-day atmosphere that hooked me. So, after doing that 10k, I signed up for a full-course marathon and haven't looked back since.

I'm a distance guy, to be honest. I don't really like racing at anything shorter than the half and am seriously looking into doing an ultra next year. My wife is against the idea, but I think I can bring her around...

As for cheese... Well, I like pretty much all cheeses. I've never tried some of the truly hardcore cheeses seeing as how I grew up in the boonies in Hawaii and then moved to Seoul, but I would totally do it. Strong flavors are totally my thing. Unfortunately, my wife does not like cheese, so the strongest cheese we have around the house is either Havarti or Gouda. I know, yeah?

Thanks for the reminder about the Recover app, Soren! Although I have used it a few times it somehow fell off my radar. I'm making time to dive into that today to start working on my problem areas.

Aloha John 👋 it's a pleasure to have you join us. I was thoroughly entertained reading your introductory post and find your journey from Hawaii to Seoul fascinating! Thanks for sharing your athlete journey, I fully agree that the race-day environment is so enthralling and captivating to be in. I started running to complete a half marathon, even though I disliked it, and the day of the event I found myself in a state of bliss -- the crowds and noise, the movement around you, it's such a wonderful sensation to be immersed in. I have yet to complete anything longer than 21k, but I'm considering doing a marathon next year, because like you, I really enjoy ultra distances and endurance style activities (mostly cycling though). Are there some cool ultra-events in South Korea that you've looked into or would you travel elsewhere for that?
I am not a big fan of cheese myself, but I grew up in Switzerland and as a child, all we would ever eat for holidays and other festive events was heaps of cheese (fondue, raclette, etc), so I'm pretty much all cheesed out at this point 🙊 I hope you are able to fulfill your desire to try some "hardcore" cheese this 2023 and best of luck racing longer distances in the near future! We're looking forward to your contributions in the Community and hope you have fun here!

Hello @Craig11 - one of our Community Management team employees just wrote an article about the Recover app so I thought you might be interested: https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/strava-insider-journal/discover-recover/ba-p/3626. 💬

Thanks for the article link, @Lola! That actually answered a couple of questions I had about how often to do the workouts and how to choose which routines to concentrate on. I did the Hip Flexor and Patella Recovery routines this morning and it feels like this could be very helpful. I'm going to focus on the hitting the strength and mobility weekly Prehab Goals over the next few weeks and see if I notice any improvements.

There are a good amount of ultras here in South Korea. Two of the ones I've been looking at are the Trans Jeju and the Seoul 100k. Both have shorter 50k variants, which would probably be where I started.

The Trans Jeju would be awesome because it takes place on Jeju Island, which is a "big" island off the south coast of the country. The race goes up and around Halla mountain, so the views would be spectacular. Also, just having an excuse to go to Jeju would be nice.

The Seoul 100k is a loop through the city. It also hits up a fairly big mountain, but also makes use of the Han River trails. Since the Han flows right through the center of the city and has biking/running paths as well as large dedicated parks all along it, the 100k course is quite nice. Very little of it is on actual city roads!

Either one of those events would be my ideal ultra. In fact, I hope to run both of them at some point in my life.

Both of those ultras sound amazing and like they have unique selling points of their own. It's really fortunate that you live there -- I wasn't aware that Seoul has such a well-built trail system and so many parks, another reason to go visit!
If you can do the 50k version, I'm sure you will build up the mental fortitude to complete the full versions! 💪 Keep striving, John!