Friday Spotlight: Zebano
Good morning readers! It's time to par-tay! You know what time it is so let's cut to the chase. Today's Spotlight athlete is a runner that is a frequent name around here. Always around to add a bit of advice and yet another solid contributor to the sub. After finding out a bit more about him he seems like he'd make a pretty good running partner. Ladies and gentlemen I present to you our friend and fellow runner, u/zebano!
Let's roll...
###The Runner:
First Name?
Shawn
Age?
35
Where are you from?
Minneapolis originally, Iowa nowadays
Occupation?
Software Engineer
###Running Q&A's:
What are your PR’s?
5km (High School) 20:04
5km (Adult) 22:19
Half 1:52:04
Full: 4:29:25
How long have you been running?
20 years or 2.5 years, depending how you measure things.
Briefly explain why you began running?
Which time? =)
High School - cause my friends were running CC
20s - Lose weight and improve other sports like Ultimate and Basketball, all attempts ended quickly due to shin splints.
30s - My brother threw down a gauntlet that I couldn't ignore so I gave myself 9 months to be ready for the 2014 Grandma's marathon. From there I realized that I enjoy running every day, it's almost meditative at times.
Most memorable running moment?
Finishing Grandma's. I had fought ITBS for nearly 2 months before hand and so I wasn't in proper shape but I shuffled and struggled and finished; There were tears.
My most humerus was being chased by a cop car down a dirt path and across a pedestrian bridge.
Do you have a running mantra?
"Be the best version of yourself." Is what I tell myself daily.
"Anyone can run a 5k" is what I tell myself when I'm out there and struggling and need to break things down in my head to more manageable portions. Finish that 5k and I just tell myself the same thing until I've completed my run.
What’s your highest recorded weekly mileage?
54.1 miles
What time of day do you prefer to run?
Lunch time.
Any big races coming up?
Grandma's 2016!!!
What are your short-term running goals?
Marathon in 3:35. Race a 3km and a 10km.
What are your long-term running goals?
- Be faster than I was in High School (20 min 5km)
- Qualify for Boston
- Enjoy Running and stay fit.
What’s one piece of running advice you’d give to the younger version of yourself?
Don't overstride. All those attempts that ended in shin splints (including High School)? Those ended when I changed my form and stopped overstriding. Running became fun again and I made progress.
What is something you need to work on to become a better runner?
My weight... I ahh... enjoy my beer (Sierra Nevada Narwhal is the one beer everyone must try) and food. I'm down to 172 but I should get to at least 160.
What is your current shoe choice?
Altra Instinct 2.0 -- cheap, nicely cushioned and they fit my wide feet.
What’s your comfy pace?
9:15-9:30
Trail? Road? Track? Or Treadmill?
Off road trail for scenery but I mostly run paved trails near work for convenience... Treadmill only if I have no other choice.
What is your ideal running weather?
50s and a light breeze. If racing low 40s and no wind.
Do you have any social media accounts you’d like to share? [Facebook, Strava, Twitter]
###Just For Fun:
What’s your spirit animal?
A raccoon! I still have my first stuffed animal "Raccy Raccoon". Alternatively, I'm a scavenger who looks cute and cuddly but is kinda nasty up close.
What hobbies and interests do you have besides running?
Way, way, way, way, too many! but I'll limit this to my big 2.
Chess - I teach elementary school kids chess, organize competitions between schools, direct adult and scholastic tournaments and if I had my way I'd retire and find a way to get paid to do this full time. I also have some long term buddies who sit in a pub with me every Wednesday night (after the Library kicks us out) where we play chess, eat pizza, shoot the breeze and generally enjoy life.
Board Gaming. If you haven't played Dead of Winter and 5 Tribes you're missing out. For those of you who want lighter, party fare Telestrations is the only game I know that can transform a chair into a Sky Cow.
Do you have any hidden talents?
Umm I can juggle but only 3 balls, not two. Really the one skill I'm proud of is that I've managed to learn to keep 3rd-5th graders attentive to a single game of chess for 15 whole minutes!
Biggest pet peeve?
People who merge onto highways without properly accelerating, people who don't use turn signals, and oxford commas.
Favorite Quote or Poem?
"The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed."
What songs have you been listening to recently?
Ohh too many. Mostly I just turn on a Indie-folk playlist on Spotify but looking at my recently played I see Jose Gonzales, The Pogues, Hamilton, The Duhks, Chance the Rapper, and Incubus.
What are some of your favorite non-running subreddits?
###One Last Question:
What is the origin of your username?
Forget Oblivion and Morrowind, I was playing the Elder Scrolls: Arena back in 1994 (way better than playing NeverWinter Nights on CompuServe) and after 6 months got sick of playing around with the spell creation wizard and decided to make a Dwarven fighter and try and beat the game! (/NotSoHumbleBrag) Anyhoo, I needed to name a character and thought the letter 'Z' was particularly awesome. I used some dice and modular arithmetic to randomly generate alternating consonants and vowels until I had something resembling a name. I adopted that handle everywhere.
I really appreciate u/zebano taking the time to let us know a bit more about him. I should also probably work on utilizing my oxford commas for his reading pleasure. As usual, please tag u/Zebano's username when personally asking him a question in this thread! Also, if I see that you've failed to tag him after asking him a question, I'll try my best to respond to your question by tagging him myself. So be aware. Tagging Zebano's username alerts him that his attention is needed. This way, he doesn't have to sift through all of the comments one by one, which can be a rather daunting task when there is a lot of traffic to the thread. Please don't forget that all of our Friday Spotlight athletes may need time to respond to your comments and questions so give them some time to reply.
####Thanks for reading everyone!!!
Previously Featured Spotlight Runners:
ATTENTION READERS!
I've been getting messages weekly from a lot of people asking to be featured in the Friday Spotlight Thread. My response to them is the same every time. I do not get to personally choose who is chosen for each thread. With exception to Palindrome27 (which I randomly chose to get this started), every runner thus far has been selected by the person before them. It's one of the perks of getting nominated. There is no list of names. No spreadsheet with columns and columns of usernames. Nothing. So for those confused, users like Philpips was chosen by Despoena. Despoena was chosen by Craigster38. So on and so on. You get the idea. Doing it this way eliminates the hassle of having to personally pick someone every week. This keeps me neutral. Some of you have expressed your opinion (via PM) on who's been featured this far claiming that I have only chosen runners who are fast, have been running for a while, or compete in longer distance races. This is simply luck of the draw. There is zero favoritism here. Each featured runner gets to personally pick someone they find interesting. I apply no pressure to the runners to pick a particular skill level of runner. This is the beauty of the process. If you want to be featured, you can up your chances of being chosen by being an active member of the subreddit. Comment as much as possible. Submit quality content. Provide as much as you can as a runner to help keep this community growing and I'm certain your efforts will not go unnoticed. Just keep tuning in and making friends and eventually it'll pay off if you want to be featured. Thank you.
Posted Apr 22, 2016, 11:28 AM UTC