Recruits, Superstitions, Social Media

Recruits
Before I go into that running thing. We received great news that Stefan Daniel (Youth Canadian XC Champ) will be joining us next season to run XC for the Dinos. He will fit in nicely with our current core of young runners, Greico, James 'Hames', Pennock and well I'm kind of young. We have another 5-8 guys on the depth chart fighting for the last few spots so come fall it should make for a strong XC team this season and the years to come. Young runners out there, come to Calgary and run with us. If Coach Doug can make my untalented legs move quick imagine what he can do with yours.

Superstitions
Don't step on the baseball lines, don't have sex before the race, don't do this, do that. Do you have them? As much as I don't like to admit it, I definitely have them. If I have a race go well, I'll replicate it as much as possible. A couple summers ago I would always have a beer the night before a race, last summer I ate a ton of beets (Pickled, Borscht, Raw), indoors I never showered before a race but then I started running bad so I started showering and started running better. Science people.

Most recently I started a blog, as I started this blog I also entered into my most inconsistent streak of a running in years. I got quite sick two days after reporting I was healthy (The 'H' word) in my last entry and missed 4 more days of training. I jinxed myself hard, so yeah I won't be saying the H word anymore, just assume I am if I don't mention not being the H word.  I almost scraped the whole blog in the name of superstition but I decided I would blame it on what really caused my inconsistency: I was making worse decisions than whoever planned The Bay of Pigs.

Why did I all of a sudden start making bad decisions? Was I thinking more about my blog than what I should be doing with running? Did I get too excited and train harder than I should have so I can sound like a badass on my blog? No, definitely just jinxed myself by saying I was the H word.

Social Media
It did raise an interesting thought about whether participating on social media makes you care more about how many people are reading, commenting, liking your content as opposed to why you are doing what you are doing that's allowing you to post the content. For instance, do you go somewhere cool to get the gratification of going there, or do you do it for the nice picture you can take, post to Instasham and get the gratification of a ton of likes.

I did some thinking about why I run and why I started a blog. I run because I want to be as fast as possible and I get gratification from winning races. I started a blog because I felt it could enhance my ability to win races. Running fast has to be the main priority, a blog is just a means to that end: blog-> exposure -> sponsors -> money -> better training. Also, really fun to have. Also, if I inspire some Canadians to be consistent and run fast, even better.

The same goes for my other social media outlets, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat. Obviously it's a fine line between attracting sponsors with effective social media and getting side tracked from your goals by the instant gratification of social media. Essentially, my goal should be to build my social media so sponsors receive gratification from what I post and I receive money in da bank boisssss.

So while we are on the topic on social media, you might as well add me on everything. No it's not weird. I'm a big fan of people. Especially weird ones.

Snapchat: HeyBroHam
Twitter: @RomanJustinen
Facebook: Roman Justinen

P.S. Snapchat is by far my favorite and I do a fun little show on my story every so often called 'Cooking With Roman' with my roommate. Check it out.

I haven't watched a Burt Reynolds movie in a while so I don't have another cool send off,

Rome