Episode 4

The podcast "Running On Air with the Eau Claire Marathon" features interviews and stories from the Eau Claire running community. Co-hosts Adam Ludwig and Emily Werman discuss the upcoming 2025 Eau Claire Marathon weekend events and thank sponsors. They interview Pina Lamb from Alaska, known for her colorful running attire and goal to run a half or full marathon in all 50 states. Pina shares her experience participating in the 2024 Go Big Challenge at ECM and talks about her training and love for running despite not being a natural runner. She describes her back-to-back race experiences and the joy she finds in running and meeting fellow runners. Hello, listeners and runners, welcome back to Running On Air with the Eau Claire Marathon, where we bring you interviews and stories from the best parts of the Eau Claire running community. I'm your co-host, Adam Ludwig, ECM Race Committee member, and this is... Emily Werman, also with the Eau Claire Marathon, and I, as you know, help coordinate this podcast series. So, in fact, if you do have stories from the running community or know great running friends that should be featured here, I would love to hear from you, and you can email me at emily at eauclairmarathon.com. As always, before we dive into today's episode, I want to give another quick thank you to all of the sponsors for the 2025 Eau Claire Marathon weekend of events, including Royal Credit Union and their 10K charity classic, It Is Race Month, and we couldn't be more excited for their partnership on this wild ride. Thank you. Yes, it is April, and it's Eau Claire Marathon Month, as we all know, so this is typically the time of year where those of us working closely with the event start to go a little bit crazy, but then we get days like today where we're able to talk with some of the most memorable people who have run ECM before, and it does make all the crazy worth it. So, today we are talking with Pina Lamb, but many of our runners might know her as Pina from Alaska. She lives in Anchorage and made the trek to Wisconsin to run the 2024 Go Big Challenge on ECM weekend last year. She is really involved in her local Anchorage running community, both running and volunteering, and has a goal to run a half or full marathon in all 50 states. Sounds familiar. To date, she has run in 34 states and logged 80 half marathons, 16 full marathons, numerous 5 and 10Ks, and even a sprint triathlon. Pina is known for taking selfies with anyone willing, dressing up in bold, bright colors on race day, taking jumping shots along the course, and all while running with a smile on her face. Pina, welcome. Thank you for having me. We're so pumped to have you here. I feel like what we need, though, if we were a call-in show, people could call in if they have a photo of them and Pina. That would be awesome. Oh, yeah? That would be awesome. Would you like that montage? Yeah. There would probably be a lot of people that have photos with me. I'm raising my hand because I'm one of those people. Do you have any embarrassing ones that you can think of, like, oh, I hope that person doesn't call in? Not off the top of my head. No. Okay. We'll have to let that marinate. That's good. All right. Let's kick things off. Pina from Alaska. I was raising my hand over here when we talked about selfies because I am one of those people that had a selfie with you from last year. I remember running into you at our expo. Your smile just captivated me. We met. We took a selfie. Then you had an awesome race experience. You are, indeed, a memorable participant here at ECM. Tell us how on earth you heard about the Eau Claire Marathon all the way from Alaska and what brought you to Eau Claire. Well, surprisingly, you do have great ambassadors for the race. I met Gwen at Anchorage RunFest. She was an ECM ambassador wearing your clothing and gear. She was like, I'm from Wisconsin. I was like, oh, I haven't run in Wisconsin yet. Then I started talking with her and then I got interested and I said, oh, I'll put that on my list. Then when I really looked into it, you had that Go Big Challenge, which was the 5K the night before the half marathon. I said, oh, well, that would be great. I did. I signed up for the ECM race. Then within the next couple weeks or a month, you guys coordinated with Get In Gear in Minnesota. I was like, oh, well, I need to fly into Minneapolis. It's only 90 miles to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. That would be great back to back. Then I forgot, oh, I'm doing the Go Big. Then I would have to do the Get In Gear half marathon that morning, drive 90 miles and do the 5K that night. It was quite an experience. Why not? You did it though, right? You ended up doing both. I did that. Well, yeah, I did all three races in two days. Fortunately, I did not do the Go Bigger, which is the 10K and the 5K and the half because I'm kind of more of a back of the pack. I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the 10K in time to get to the 5K start. But I did. Before the race, I just hung out and I went to the expo. Then I saw the kids race. That was really cool. The obstacle course was so fun. Oh, my gosh. The kids, the families. Yeah. I've never thought of the kids race as something people would watch for entertainment. We should put bleachers up. Yeah. I was just surprised. That was the first time I've seen a kids race with obstacle course and going through the park. It was so cute. It was a great time experience. When you're making this decision, you said, yeah, I put it on my list, but then there was this Go Big challenge and I could do more. Are you looking for bang for your buck? Is that what you're aiming for when you're trying to pick these races up? Yeah. I think so. I like the flag. You guys have a nice jacket as well with the medals. Then especially with the half and half challenge, they threw that extra big medal. Because I'm traveling from so far away and I'm spending quite a bit of money to get to these races, especially in all 50 states. I try to plan some back-to-back ones. It worked out really well. I did have to do a lot more training because the get-in-gear, they have a stricter time finish, like three hours for the half marathon. I was really putting in a lot of training just to get in right under the three-hour mark. At least your guys, the Eau Claire race, they have the marathon as well. I was maybe a little bit like 320 something for my finish, but there were still plenty of people, plenty of food, plenty of supporters out there. Was this your first back-to-back race or had you done multiple states at once before? I've done multiple states before. In 2018, I did three states, the Bear, Trifecta, Idaho, Wisconsin, Utah. Oh, no. Sorry. Idaho, Wyoming, Utah. Sorry. Yeah, that'd be tough. Then I did the six states, the New England Challenge in 2019. That's kind of where all those ... On the East Coast, at least, it's only a couple-hour drive from each of those races. I think that series, it's not the same anymore. It used to be like six and six days with this one company. Now, I think they do three and three on two different weekends. Either way, that was before COVID, the timeframe, and then I realized I could do more than just one race a weekend. That's kind of where I was like, well, I can do a couple races at a time. Then I've done the Dopey Challenge. Now, that's difficult because it's like four days in a row. That's 5K, 10K hassle, but I really loved your race weekend. Yeah. I'm so happy to hear that. I'm glad we had little kids for entertainment. I'm actually going to note that. Tell me about from your body's perspective. You run 13.1 Saturday morning, a 5K that night, 13.1 the next day. Regardless of how fast you're going and you identify as a back-of-the-packer, it's a toll on your body. How did your body cope with that weekend, and maybe how did you appropriately prepare for a back-to-back? Definitely, I did a couple long runs back-to-back to prepare for it. I think once you get training, it's just a matter of more your mind has to think you can do it, too. After that first race, I was really pumped up on adrenaline and I was really excited that I finished because the other thing is they have a point-to-point course in Minnesota and then you had to take a shuttle bus back to the start. I was like, I have to make the shuttle bus. Otherwise, I might have to take an Uber or walk or I don't know. I think a lot of it is adrenaline and then also meeting people. I was in the Get In Gear race and I met people that were also going to Eau Claire as well. I met some people from other states like New York and Connecticut and they were also going to Wisconsin as well. I didn't know them before this race either. It was just so fun. Love that. You all could have carpooled over together. I know. We didn't know each other before the race but it's just so fun how many people have the same goals and journey surprisingly. I met some of them and I saw them again in Wisconsin as well. I don't know how I really – I just tried to rest up or relax a little bit but I kept moving like walking because definitely after a race, you really sit down. Obviously, that 90-minute car ride or so, that was a little bit of sitting. I don't know. I guess somehow I was able to do it. The only thing is probably with so much jam-packed of the racing, I didn't really see as much of Eau Claire as well besides just seeing the area when I was in the race and then visiting with friends after having dinner and stuff. Maybe one day, I might have to come back to Eau Claire and look at what we're having this for. We love to hear that. We love it. Kind of going off of what we talked about with the toll on your body and training, your average person on the street doesn't do back-to-back races like this all the time. You have shared before that you like these types of challenges because so often in the past, your ability as a runner has been maybe challenged or questioned. In fact, even as we were coordinating getting you on this show and emailing, you did tell me, I was never a runner. I used to come in last place in track and field in cross-country. I don't need to read through your resume and look at your list of races that you run to know that you certainly have proven people wrong in that respect. Can you tell us more about your journey getting into running, I guess, and what brings you joy from doing these race experiences? I think at first, I got into the running. Another friend was training me for a full marathon. I thought, well, that is really far. I don't know if I could do that either. It's funny that I saw her do it. I was like, oh, maybe I could do that. I don't know if I honestly love training per se, but I really love the social aspect and the races and traveling and seeing new places and meeting new people. I really do like to run. It gets you active and gets you healthy. Sometimes, I'm like, oh, I don't really want to go to that run. Training-wise, I'm like, oh, I really love racing. I love seeing the people. I love the atmosphere. I love meeting new people, too. Even though I've done so many races, I still think of myself kind of like a beginner runner or so. It's just so funny. I recently met some new people at the run group. They were like, oh, how many races have you done? I've done some races. They were new because they're starting to train for their first half marathon. Then I was like, oh, they were telling me their pace. Then I was like, oh, no, I'm sure you're going to be much faster. Plus, you can run and walk. I do all kinds of things like that, too. Next thing I know, they're next to me running with me. They're commenting about my breathing. They're like, oh, yeah, we could tell your experience. You have good breathing technique. I was like, well, what? Okay. Then they kept up with me because they were like, oh, we're like 20-minute pace. I'm like, no, no, no. It ends up being like 13-minute pace. It was just so fun and encouraging. I was just like, oh, yeah, we're just out for a run, chatting. I think it's just meeting the people, really, is what I enjoy about it. You just exude that vibe of just wanting to be with people and meet with people. The community notion of running and what that means. Being able to have those good conversations. You get to meet so many people, as you talked about, from around the world. I'm now thinking of a shuttle solution from Minneapolis to Eau Claire. It needs to include beds. We need maybe massage therapists that are good at taking folks over. That's another story. You must have a most memorable or a top five memorable or kind of zany experience that you've had in meeting other people at different races. Is there one in particular that you're willing to share with us? It was so funny. I was in rock and roll, like Las Vegas Expo. This other girl just starts yelling out, like, oh, yeah, that's Tina. That's Tina from Alaska. I was like, wait, who are you? Then she was a friend of a friend. Thanks. You're viral. It was so funny. My other friend was like, yeah, I know her. She's like Miss Alaska. I'm like, oh, I've never been in pageants. What are you talking about? She's like, yes, you represent Alaska in running. I was like, okay, then I'm a one-name person. Just Tina from Alaska. That's fine. I love it. I do, too. We need slang. I feel like races could brand off of that. Like, Tina from Alaska ran our race, or I'm Tina from Alaska. I met Tina from Alaska. Oh, my gosh. This is a great idea that we need to marinate on more. I really – this is a branding opportunity for all of us. Well, okay. One of the best experiences that I had at your race was I was – seriously, I was at the blue and gold mile. At first, I thought – I was like, okay, they said they'll have lots of cheerleaders. Anyway, so at first, they had a few students, but then you turn the corner, and then all these students were lining the walkways, cheering, all blue and gold and with signs. It was about mile 12 or so in the race, and I was just so surprised. So I was in there. I was running, but then I was also, like, videotaping everyone as I went on by. And next thing I know, when I'm videotaping, honestly, somebody yelled out, oh, there's Tina from Alaska on the microphone. And I thought, oh, it's probably because I showed my race outfit, like, on the Facebook page the day before. Like, oh, this is my race outfit. Flat Tina. Like, this is what I'm wearing. And thirdly, I don't know who it was, but they yelled it out. I was like, oh, my gosh. Do you know who I am? Oh. It was so fun. And then, thirdly, right after the mile 12, it just started to sprinkle just a little bit in the run, but I was like, oh, it didn't rain until the very end. It made it. I know who you're talking about. Yeah, and you had skirted in just in there, right? Just a little bit. But before the elements got us, yeah. And the funny thing is, earlier in the race, there was another girl near me at the start. She's like, well, it just needs to just rain already. I don't mind raining the rain. And I was like, what are you talking about? And so, I had to get away from her because I thought, this is bad vibes. But later, at mile 6, I saw her and her friend again, and then I said, why do you want it to rain? Like, I actually started talking to her. Turns out, she was from Wrangell, Alaska. So, I don't know her, but she's also from Alaska. But in the southeast, Wrangell, it rains a lot. So, she's used to that kind of climate. And I was like, and I think it was her first half marathon at Eau Claire Race. I've never met her before, but I met her in the race. Her name was Sarah. And next thing you know, two weeks later at the beer garden, they're like, oh, all your friends from Alaska were already here because we had to show our IDs. I'm like, I don't know any of those people. But it was such a small world that I met. I don't know if there was more runners from Alaska, but I seriously, I was like, why do you want it to rain? Like, nobody wants to run in the rain. And she was like, oh, I'm just used to that kind of weather. And I'm like, where are you from? Oh, wow. That was just the oddest moment, but it was such a small world, I mean. I know. That community is like, the running community has so many people, but it's also such a small world at the same time. So, the fact that there were multiple Alaska runners at Eau Claire is incredible. Kind of leaning into that, one of our final questions for you, not knowing that there was another runner from Alaska there and knowing that we have many people coming to Eau Claire from all across the country, how would you, as a veteran Eau Claire marathon runner, describe our race to somebody who maybe is also a run cationer or considering Eau Claire? What would you tell them about the Eau Claire marathon experience? Well, I think the Eau Claire marathon, it's such a great community. And even though it's a small town, it really does, even though they broadcast it as like the small town, big race, it really did have a big atmosphere. Like, your kind of race is actually even larger than our Anchorage Run Fest. I mean, there was about, I think, 1,600 in the half marathon. I mean, and we came early to the start because we thought, oh no, the small town, how are they going to handle this big crowd? And there was so much parking. And we watched the start of the marathon race and we cheered them on because they started maybe, what, half an hour, hour ahead? Either way. So, I mean, we were there and we liked, you guys had pacers, that was great. And I thought it was pretty scenic seeing all the bridges and I really enjoyed that. And then lots of, even in the neighborhoods, it was so fun because people were out there spectating with signs and things in all these neighborhoods. And then even, like, the kids, they had decorated the streets. Like, the girls on the run, they had, like, cheering. I mean, and I was really surprised they had that big balloon arch for mile five with a smile cam. I mean, there was just so much. I was really surprised at how much, like, how much support there was for the race. And then the half, we connected with the full marathon. So, I saw a lot of the relay teams. I don't know if that was, like, I think mile eight or something. But I never really felt, like, totally by myself. Like, I thought, oh, a small race, I'll be, like, by myself. You know, but there was always kind of somebody around and people cheering, everything. And then even at the end, there was so much, like, they're like, here, take this bag and you can get all this, like, snacks. And I was like, oh, wow, you know. I mean. The best part. Yeah. There was just so much. Oh, and then the beer garden. So, I mean, that was a really fun time, too. We closed down the beer garden, honestly. To keep this out. But then we were waiting for my other friend who was the sleeper of the full. So, but, I mean, we had a great time. Probably, I mean, it was a really fun time. The only, probably the only thing about your course that was difficult for me was that mile 10, we passed by the beer garden. And so, we saw people that are finished celebrating. I mean, they had a good DJ, music, party. I mean, I was like, oh, man, they're already done. But I still have another 5K to go. So, I mean. Or I could stop right here and no one would even know. No, you're so right, Tina. And that's why it feels like part of the race. But I was like, oh, no, I'm not done yet. But I could celebrate with them later. Right. Just another 5K to go. But everything you said, it feels like we paid you to say our favorite topics. No. When you get on, like, everything that we like to share. But that's good to know that those points that we like to pride ourselves on about our race, the community support, the organization, the Blue Gold Mile, are things that people remember. So, it's really great to hear that that had an impact on you. Awesome. And then, also, it was great that the 5K was, like, at first, I thought, oh, I'll do the 5K. I didn't really pay attention to the course. But some of the course was the opposite direction in the half marathon. So, at least it wasn't like, oh, I'm doing part of the race the second day, the day before. You know? So, I like that aspect, too. It was different. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. We try to showcase. We love our talent. We try to showcase different parts of it. I'm glad you saw that. Okay. We're about to get to our final segment, which is fun. It's exciting. But I got to ask, looking toward the rest of 2025, what races do you have on the docket for yourself? Well, I'm going to Kentucky in April. Yep. Yep. And I haven't fully finalized my schedule. But I'm hoping maybe I can do some more back-to-back challenges at the end of the year or so. But, yeah. So, I still have, well, 16 states to go. So, I have to think about where I'm going. And it's not going to coincide exactly the same as, like, I'm trying to do 100 half-marathons, as well. But I'm at 80. And then I have, like, well, either way. And I have a lot of local races. So, I haven't planned them all out. But it's, like, I have an idea. That's all right. There's plenty of 2025 left. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so happy to hear that, Tina. I'm getting to 100. That's going to be awesome. It'll take a couple more years, at least. A couple more years. We'll face it out. It's a long-term goal. It's good to have those. It's a long-term goal. Yep. Long plot line. Great. It's time for our final segment. We like to end all of our shows by asking our guests a few running-related would-you-rather questions. So, we won't track your response time or how fast you can sprint to the finish of the answer. But we do call this segment Splits Decisions. Tina, are you ready for our Splits Decisions segment? Okay. I'm on a game show. Yes. Yes. Here we go. Do you prefer to run with an empty stomach or a full bladder? Probably an empty stomach. Yes. With a full bladder, you're going to be stuffing all the port-a-potties. Yeah. Good. Is it constantly full? You know, like you sort of vacuum. Is it full? Like, what are the parameters? That's tough. Both are awful. I don't know what the right answer is with that one. Okay. Next one. Skip deodorant or skip body glide? Skip body glide. I can't stand the smell. Oh. Yeah. I can't stand the smell. Sorry. Would handle the pain, can't stand the smell. Oh, yeah. Priorities. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. Okay. Our last one then is, Tina, would you rather run in your favorite running outfit every day but only wash it once a week? Let's fix on your last one. I know. I feel like I already know the answer. Or would you rather run in clean clothes that you hate every day? Oh, clean clothes. It is. It doesn't matter if it looks good or not. Like, you want to smell good. Yeah. I know. And I had to throw that one in there because you have such a memorable outfit. You wear, like, I don't know. Have you worn, like, tutus or costumes? I feel like I've seen you wear, like, these bright socks and hats. You go all out. Yeah. Like, different, like, sparkle or gypsy runner shorts or, yeah. Lots of compression. Yeah. Socks. But I just kind of mix and match. Like, I don't. Make sure they're clean, right? Yeah. And they're clean. Oh, my gosh. That's Tina from Alaska. I love it. I know we're coming up on our time here. So, Tina, thank you again for joining us today and talking about your experience at Oakland Marathon, your experience on your runcations across the country. I am so excited for when you get to meet your goal of 100 half marathons and then cross all 50 states off of the list. That's awesome. Thank you to our listeners, again, for tuning in to Running On Air with Oakland Marathon. Another thank you to Oakland Hometown Media, who produces this show. And a reminder that we air new episodes on the second Wednesday of each month. Happy Oakland Marathon Race Month. It's April. We'll see you all in a few short weeks.