[00:00:00] Kim: [00:00:00] This episode is sponsored by Mid Strike Magazine. The first diverse digital runners magazine visit midstrikemagazine.com to keep up to date on all of your diverse running news.

[00:00:19] Run crew series continues with Seattle based Chasing Roses Run Club.

[00:00:37] Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Run Wave Podcast. I am your host Kim. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome to the show. If you are a return listener, welcome back to the show. I truly appreciate you tuning into the show week after week. If you haven’t done so already, please be sure to subscribe to the [00:01:00] show, pause this episode right now.

[00:01:03] Look at your phone. Hit that subscribe button so you can be notified each and every time I upload a new episode. For the month of April, I am continuing with the run crew series. Now the purpose of this series is to just introduce you to different run crews throughout the United States and the world. So.

[00:01:26] If, and when we get back to normal traveling, if you have to travel for business for leisure, for whatever you go to these different cities and you can link up with these run crews. So you are never running alone, wherever you are. I was searching far and wide for run crews on the West coast. And let me tell you, they are very hard to come by, but I finally found a couple of West coast run crews and this one was.

[00:01:58] They’re not so new, [00:02:00] but a little bit new because they’re just getting really active again, you know, especially during the pandemic, but I found this crew Chasing Roses run club, they were originally based in Oregon, but the founder moved to Seattle. So now they are a Seattle based run club and they have runners all over the States who run with them virtually as well.

[00:02:22] So get to know this Seattle run club right now. Welcome Geary and Tunde to The Run Wave Podcast. Welcome gentlemen. 

[00:02:34] Geary: [00:02:34] I appreciate you having 

[00:02:35] Tunde: [00:02:35] us. 

[00:02:36] Kim: [00:02:36] Of course. Now, Geary is one of the event coordinators for the club and Tunde is the founder of Chasing Roses. One, clap

[00:02:49] a little bit about yourselves. You go first today where you’re originally from. 

[00:02:54] Tunde: [00:02:54] Uh, I’m originally from the DMV area, Maryland DC area born in DC, grew up in [00:03:00] Maryland. Um, I currently live in Seattle, Washington so long way away from home. Um, I am, how old am I? I’m 39. I’ll be 40 in like a couple months in September.

[00:03:17] And, uh, yeah, that’s that’s me. 

[00:03:22] Kim: [00:03:22] Now, what is the origin of your names? I know you, your background has to be from somewhere else. 

[00:03:27] Tunde: [00:03:27] Yeah. Yeah. Uh, both my parents emigrated to DC, um, from Nigeria Legos, um, back in the mid, late seventies. So 

[00:03:38] Kim: [00:03:38] nice. So they’ve been in the States for a long while. 

[00:03:42] Tunde: [00:03:42] Oh, yeah. Long time.

[00:03:42] They’ll probably never go back to be honest.

[00:03:49] Kim: [00:03:49] so what city are you currently residing in? 

[00:03:52] Tunde: [00:03:52] Uh, Seattle, Seattle. Um, yeah, from, from DCA to a bunch of other places and then Portland and then [00:04:00] Seattle. 

[00:04:01] Kim: [00:04:01] Okay. And how do you make your coins? What do you do for a living? 

[00:04:05] Tunde: [00:04:05] I am a biology professor, so I teach, um, Like, um, molecular biology, general micro anatomy physiology.

[00:04:15] Kim: [00:04:15] Really? Yeah. I was not expecting that. Wow. So you’re one of the smart ones, huh? 

[00:04:23] Geary: [00:04:23] Yeah.

[00:04:27] Kim: [00:04:27] Right, right. Yeah. See what, listen, I eat just impressed me tremendously. Wow. So professors out on the college level. Yeah. So you’re 39 teaching college kids. 

[00:04:42] Tunde: [00:04:42] Yeah. I love it. I’ve been teaching for like, uh, for four years now. Yeah. 

[00:04:50] Kim: [00:04:50] Wow. My professors did not look like you when I was in college.

[00:04:58] Not at all. They were [00:05:00] old and wrinkly and

[00:05:05] Tunde: [00:05:05] most of them were old.

[00:05:09] Kim: [00:05:09] Wow. I’m not mad at you. What about you, Geary? Where are you? 

[00:05:16] Geary: [00:05:16] Yeah, well, I’m originally from the Bay area. California grew up in Sacramento. So, uh, went to high school out here, uh, went to HBCU for two years and then I ultimately graduated from Cal state LA. And, uh, now most recently I just moved back to California.

[00:05:31] Actually. I was living in. For work. I travel what to five States and last six years for work. So now I’m back in California back home. So, so it’s a big change, but I liked the feeling being back home with family and everything. So that’s where I’m at now. 

[00:05:47] Kim: [00:05:47] Wow. So were you in Seattle at one point as well?

[00:05:49] Geary: [00:05:49] Yeah, I was. Yeah. So I just left Seattle, uh, in the middle of January of this year. So I was in Seattle for about a year and a half. 

[00:06:00] [00:05:59] Kim: [00:05:59] Okay. And, um, what, what is it like in Seattle? My sister moved there like a few years ago, but she’s like the only black person that I know in Seattle. And now, so that’s three, so yeah, what’s the Adeline.

[00:06:15] I’ll be 

[00:06:15] Geary: [00:06:15] honest with you. It’s a little Juul, it’s a Juul, you know, a lot of people, you know, say it’s not fun and this, that and the other. But I mean, when you, uh, you know, we’re both, uh, uh, today’s my fraternity brothers, so that’s how we know each other. And then, uh, from there just personality wise, if you can get out and mix and mingle, Seattle got a lot to offer, then I like outdoor stuff.

[00:06:35] So I like going hiking and being on the water and stuff like that, though. And then food. So, you know, food is always a plus. 

[00:06:43] Kim: [00:06:43] Yeah. I love the food. I always ask people that I answer you in other States, like, what is the food scene like? Cause that’s the first place I’m hitting when I land. Some is, yeah, I got, got to stuff my face.

[00:06:55] Yeah. So what are you doing out there? And Kelly, what do you do for work that has you traveling all [00:07:00] over the place? 

[00:07:01] Geary: [00:07:01] Uh, so I worked for a Milwaukee power tools. I manage, uh, 10 States and number of people. And, uh, basically we do business to business sales. So a power tool company, we sell to a number of different companies and things like that.

[00:07:14] So currently right now I control the Western division of our grand jury business. So that has me, has my calendar pretty booked up. So, you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s a great thing. No, I, you know, I’m a substituted in, uh, Man, but, you know, having my brothers in the, uh, in the grill, carrying me, holding me accountable to get on these miles.

[00:07:35] So, and that’s a big thing. 

[00:07:37] Kim: [00:07:37] That’s good. So you’ve been traveling like during COVID the entire time? 

[00:07:42] Geary: [00:07:42] Oh, no, no, no. Uh, so we’re, we’re pretty much, uh, remote working for the last year. So I just started traveling again. The, see, I moved in January and I think I’ve been on almost 30, 30 trips so far. Yeah. So [00:08:00] yeah, I work as colon.

[00:08:02] Kim: [00:08:02] Wow. Wow. Are you like driving or are you like flying? 

[00:08:05] Geary: [00:08:05] Oh, no, I’ll fly. Yeah. If it’s anything over two hours, I’m 

[00:08:08] flying. 

[00:08:09] Kim: [00:08:09] So what’s your airline miles looking like, you know

[00:08:26] so when did you start running? What’s your running journey look like? 

[00:08:29] Geary: [00:08:29] Man, uh, real life like running like this probably happened during a pandemic. I’ll be honest with you. I play football majority of my life. So most of our running was conditioning, quick sprints and everything like that. So endemic start or hit and all the gyms are closed and everything like that.

[00:08:46] And. I know today has been doing this for a while. And, uh, he presented, or somebody else presented the idea of the Portland, uh, half marathon. So we started beginning training for that, although the top of the gym is being closed. So we just, I just kind of [00:09:00] stuck with it. So, uh, uh, long distance runner, I would say the last year.

[00:09:04] And other than that, it’s always been just sprinting and different things like that. 

[00:09:09] Kim: [00:09:09] What about you, Sandy? When did you get started running? 

[00:09:12] Tunde: [00:09:12] Uh, sophomore year of high school, maybe. So I got into it because I coached, I played basketball in high school. Um, and I coach one cross country to kind of condition for our season.

[00:09:26] Cause we did like a lot of, uh, a lot of pressing defense where we just all of the court. So he wanted us to be more conditioning than other team. So I started running then, uh, so ran cross country in high school. I thought about it in college. I could have, but I didn’t because I wanted to have more fun with my friends.

[00:09:45] And, uh, that took off running for about a decade. And then in 2014, uh, playing basketball, I had a really bad, uh, injury to my hand. We had to [00:10:00] have like surgery and I couldn’t like lift weights. I couldn’t play basketball. So the only thing I could do was run. So, um, got back into running 24, the 2015 Miami, um, half marathon, and then been running ever since.

[00:10:16] Kim: [00:10:16] Wow. So were you like meaning and you hate it that you were forced to run cross country? 

[00:10:23] Tunde: [00:10:23] Uh, at first, yeah, like my first time going up for cross country. Um, it was a Friday and I’m happy because it was a Friday because the next day, if I had to go to school that next day I would’ve quit because I laid in bed all day, Saturday.

[00:10:37] I was like this, ain’t it?

[00:10:43] Kim: [00:10:43] Because my culture, maybe in our cross country. So I just wanted to run an indoor and outdoor check, but he’s like, no, if you want to read it and throw it outside, you have to do cross country too. But cross country like builds you. Like, you hate it at first. But then after a while it was like, all right, this isn’t so bad.

[00:10:56] So, how did you transition into long distance running? 

[00:11:01] [00:11:00] Tunde: [00:11:01] Um, I guess, I don’t know. Um, okay. So when I first started back running, uh, like after I broke my finger, I couldn’t run a mile without stopping. Like I would have run up like, Oh my God, my back hurts. I can’t read. Then I was just like, this is the only thing I have to like, um, To keep active.

[00:11:27] So I would like run a mile and stop like five times in that mall. And then I would just keep at it and keep at it. And then gradually I was, you know, I kept imagining, okay. Yeah. Miami marathon coming up, just think about how warm and sunny is going to be. And that’s all it kept me going. And then after that, I said, I’m never doing another half marathon again, 20,000, 2015.

[00:11:53] And I’ve done a lot since. Uh, officially, um, [00:12:00] 17, I think unofficially, I don’t know how many 

[00:12:06] Kim: [00:12:06] have you ventured into marathon and yet, 

[00:12:09] Tunde: [00:12:09] yes. Uh, I’ve done two. I did, um, I did Seattle marathon in 2018 and did the Chicago in 2019.

[00:12:26] It was flat. And I didn’t mind, I don’t like that. I don’t like it’s too. It’s too flat. Like for a half marathon. That’s cool for a full marathon. Just completely flat is that’s not it. Cause it’s, it’s a lot of repetition and, you know, um, like my hamstrings were just getting worked and I was like, ah, nah, I don’t like it.

[00:12:49] Kim: [00:12:49] I need to run a New York city marathon then.

[00:12:58] If you need a salad, [00:13:00] come on over to New York city. We got some bridges. You’re going run over some bridges. We got some the you, 

[00:13:07] Tunde: [00:13:07] I mean, I am going to run it because my goal is to do the word majors, but I am at one point I’m going to run it. 

[00:13:14] Kim: [00:13:14] Okay. So how was, um, what Seattle did you do? Rock and roll 

[00:13:20] Tunde: [00:13:20] the Seattle marathon.

[00:13:22] Kim: [00:13:22] Oh, Seattle has a marathon. Did they have a half too? 

[00:13:24] Tunde: [00:13:24] Yup. Half 

[00:13:26] Kim: [00:13:26] and four. Okay. If I’m looking for 

[00:13:29] Tunde: [00:13:29] the Sunday after Thanksgiving. 

[00:13:32] Kim: [00:13:32] Oh, cause I was signed up to run rock and roll’s um, Seattle and you know, they can’t, um, I’m done with rock and roll, so I need a new Seattle race to run. So I didn’t know. You guys had your own marathon.

[00:13:48] I’m putting that on my notepad. Wait, wait, how how’s the course. Tell me how is the course first plus signup? Uh, 

[00:13:56] Geary: [00:13:56] he just told you is he likes heels, 

[00:13:57] Tunde: [00:13:57] so

[00:14:01] [00:14:00] it’s, it’s heavy, but it’s not as bad as New York is. The Hills are towards the end. 

[00:14:09] Kim: [00:14:09] Well, it looks New York, New York isn’t bad is it’s just a challenge. Right. Because when you start out, you’re on a bridge of Arizona bridge and you run like one mile uphill at the start of the race, and then it’s just like, it’s up and down.

[00:14:24] It’s a challenge, but it’s, it’s a good challenge. Cause you have the crowd there to cheer you on. Like for the whole 26 miles is dope. If you can run New York city, add it to your list, run anywhere. Let me think. See, I’ve never done blessed in a dish. Chicago. I did. Um, Berlin. You probably wouldn’t like Berlin either.

[00:14:47] It’s pretty flat as well. Right. 

[00:14:50] Tunde: [00:14:50] I started for Berlin last year and it didn’t get in, so not sure 

[00:14:58] Kim: [00:14:58] that was back up. Yeah, [00:15:00] it’s flat. I say it’s comparable to Chicago. So you prep might not like that one either. Okay. In Berlin is not the best city to go to either. Let me ask you out of Berlin or your majors, 

[00:15:14] Geary: [00:15:14] do the have good food and good beer.

[00:15:18] Kim: [00:15:18] Well, the beer is probably if you go well, um, one of the Berlin marathon is like right at October Fest. Which is like their beer festival, you know?

[00:15:31] good, good beer. The food was, uh, it was okay. It wasn’t bad grade, nothing. This is a city that I would never revisit, but it like that. 

[00:15:42] Tunde: [00:15:42] I have a few of those. 

[00:15:44] Kim: [00:15:44] So today you’re a part of the, um, the Brooks running run happy team. Yes. Yes. So that, what w what does that entail? They hook you up with some free sneakers.

[00:15:56] What w w what do you get from 

[00:15:57] Tunde: [00:15:57] Brooks? Well, [00:16:00] we can start there. So I got so, so far, um, ignorance, like the calendar year. So January to January and so far, I’ve gotten two pairs of sneakers. Uh, a lot of clothes. Um, I don’t know, like lots of shirts, tights, um, hats, pullovers jackets, like the whole, whole nine.

[00:16:24] Um, and I don’t know if you’ve ever done like a sponsorship, but like basically they have like all the other people who are on the team, we have like our own Slack group where we, where we, uh, just talk about racing, tips, just motivation, um, training tips. Um, they gave us all free entry to the Pittsburgh virtual, um, marathon.

[00:16:49] So that’s coming up in may. Yeah. Yeah. So was in-person I think limited but virtual. So with doing that with Brooks, [00:17:00] um, they’re headquartered here in Seattle. So, um, I think that’s also part of the reason why I was selected maybe. Um, cause I know I don’t work in Brooks. To be honest. Yeah, I did.

[00:17:22] I wasn’t the biggest Brooks person, um, uh, simply because I, I have a neutral foot so I can pretty much wear anything. So before this, I was mostly running in Nike and new balance. Um, but Brooks isn’t that the shoes are very comfortable. Um, I will say that. So if you have feet problems while you’re running, that’s a good shoe to check out.

[00:17:49] Kim: [00:17:49] Listen, I used to wear Brooks like Brooksville is my thing. Right. At time I used to wear the peer connect, right? Yeah. But they disconnected my dis disconnected, [00:18:00] discontinue the shoe. And after that I was like, Brooks y’all debts to me. So you pick your people have Brooks, you know, tell them, look, this is the hub.

[00:18:07] If you had something comparable to the peer connect that they, they probably just going to send you to like four or five years ago. Like right now, 

[00:18:20] Tunde: [00:18:20] the glycerin been really comfortable. Um, maybe a little heavy, but for comfort, for distance. I would say the glycerins, but if you’re looking for, to go fast, um, there’s this show called the Hyperion temples.

[00:18:34] Those are really fast shoes, light and fast. 

[00:18:37] Kim: [00:18:37] Now the only thing about Brooks is that like my feet where they have to look good, they have to be good and look good too.

[00:18:52] yeah. Don’t don’t um, post the show on Instagram.

[00:18:59] Did [00:19:00] you get those new, um, green? What are they? What color is that? I don’t know what color it’s like light bright neon green, alpha flies. 

[00:19:08] Tunde: [00:19:08] Oh no, 

[00:19:09] Geary: [00:19:09] I didn’t get those.

[00:19:15] Tunde: [00:19:15] yeah, I would never wear those because I’m sponsored by Brooklyn.

[00:19:25] Kim: [00:19:25] You can wear them. You just can’t post them.

[00:19:30] So you also have a podcast, a summer 16 pot. Yes. What are y’all? What are y’all talking about on there? 

[00:19:37] Tunde: [00:19:37] Um, some running, um, not too much, uh, but it’s another member of, um, chase Chasing Roses. Also another one of my fraternity brother. He’s the cohost. And we talk about. Uh, like I said, running, but, um, just our everyday life pop culture, a lot of politics, um, sports and [00:20:00] music.

[00:20:00] So just live with everything. Yeah. So, uh, we just passed our one year anniversary as well, so. 

[00:20:07] Kim: [00:20:07] Nice. Congratulations. Thank you. So you have your side pot, like I have a side pot too. We, to all of my curse in and all the, you know,

[00:20:28] all right, so let’s get into Chasing Roses. I love that name. How did you come up with that? 

[00:20:35] Tunde: [00:20:35] Um, so the, the, um, the group first started in Portland, Oregon. So. I used to run. This is when I was training for Miami. I used to run by myself in Portland and Portland is even less diverse than Seattle is. And so I used to run by myself and like in downtown Portland.

[00:20:59] And I was [00:21:00] seeing like these groups of white people just running, but like together. And they look at, they were having so much fun and I was like, you know what? That’s what. Portland needs, like, just like a, a run group. It doesn’t have to be all black, but that’s the majority, like, you know, people of color or black people.

[00:21:19] And I started, I went online, Googled it, of course, none existed. So I was like, you know, start started on. And then, um, Paula is like, nickname is the city of roses. So that’s where I started, like just Chasing Roses and, um, came from there. Um, yeah. So that’s where they came from. 

[00:21:39] Kim: [00:21:39] I didn’t know, Portland was called the city of roses.

[00:21:43] So they be Seattle run scene. So if I was, if I visited Seattle and I went outside for a run out of folks will be looking at me like, what is this Brown girl doing?

[00:22:05] [00:22:00] The way they woke. They walk now. 

[00:22:08] Geary: [00:22:08] Man. They seen us enough plus other people. I think it’s just, especially with the pandemic and everybody getting outside. I think it’s just expected now. Hmm. 

[00:22:18] Kim: [00:22:18] So you like the, the club has like a kind of unique mission. So what was like your, your mission and who are you welcoming into your club?

[00:22:30] Tunde: [00:22:30] Um, so I’m actually part I’m actually, like I found it Chasing Roses. Um, I actually. Also a part of another, um, another run club here in Seattle, um, called CSR D or chase, chase, or club Seattle runners division. And, um, that, that club is, is like a, like a Neapolitan flavor of people. Just everyone it’s it’s black, it’s white, it’s Asian it’s it’s um, it’s just everyone.

[00:23:00] [00:23:00] And, um, during the pandemic. Um, I think that we wanted something, especially around the time that I’m out Alberry was, was killed. I think we wanted a space of our own. So like, uh, we would run and then, like, I remember that weekend I was running around like a really popular Lake hair, um, uh, called green Lake.

[00:23:30] And I saw like just people just out running or laying in the grass in the sun. You know, um, and it seemed like it affected me because I was running. I was like, okay, this is something that could happen to me or happened to Geary. What happened, happened to you happen to anyone like us that looks like us.

[00:23:51] And so that whole weekend, as I ran, I was like, so overcome with emotion [00:24:00] because of looking around and seeing no white people just. Frolicking around and not having a care in the world. And I went and I was wondering, do they even care? Oh, did he even know what that feels like? 

[00:24:13] Geary: [00:24:13] Yeah. 

[00:24:16] Tunde: [00:24:16] So before that chasing road Chasing Roses was like important.

[00:24:20] It was, we meet in person. We, we, um, we me present three times a week. We did short runs, long runs, track track, Tuesdays. And then, uh, Portland, Seattle is a very transient city. Um, there black people moved there for four jobs basically. Um, cause like in Portland, there’s Nike, there’s Adidas, there’s Intel and Seattle.

[00:24:43] There’s uh, Microsoft, Boeing, um, Amazon Google. And so people come, they stay like three or four years and they leave. And so at that point I was like, let’s switch case and roses too. Um, [00:25:00] in-person as well as virtual. So we can keep in contact with the people who come to Seattle and then ended up leaving.

[00:25:07] Like for instance, Geary is in California now, but he’s still a part of Chasing Roses. Um, and we, we share runs, uh, virtually and, um, and if he comes back in town, go for a run. Uh, we may later on this year to try to schedule another race in a different city, and we’ll all get together for a race and we’ll train together virtually and we’ll come together and race.

[00:25:28] So that’s like kind of like the mission statement and who we’re looking to target and chase some roses. And of course, like, I don’t want to make it seem like they can’t go as long as the ally.

[00:25:43] Kim: [00:25:43] So Geary, you need to start a chase in roses LA well, not LA what part of Cali are you in? 

[00:25:48] Geary: [00:25:48] The, the Bay area of North Northern California. 

[00:25:52] Kim: [00:25:52] Okay. So you need to start chasing roses the Bay. 

[00:25:57] Geary: [00:25:57] Yeah. Yeah. That’s real. I mean, [00:26:00] cause I’ll be honest with you, even since I’ve came back home, I’ve gotten in some runs with all the teammates or just friends and everything like that.