Even if one is blessed with a good job (as I was) during a deployment, having weekly milestones give you something to look forward to that is closer than the return home. During my first deployment I was fortunate to find a group that did long runs at 0430 every Sunday and finished with drinks at the Green Bean. I met some great people and even got to run on the 101st 10-Miler Team as a result of meeting these folks.
Camp Stryker Striders after a Sunday Run |
With memories of these good times, I determined at the start
of this deployment that I would find or start a running club. So I was very
pleased when I discovered a flyer for the Kuwait Running Mafia in the USO of
Camp Arifjan in my first week.
At some point a few months into the deployment, though no
real maneuvering or planning, I found myself as one of the leaders of the club.
These are some of the lessons and history for those that come after or want to
start their own deployed running club.
History
The Kuwait Running Mafia, or KRM, was founded in October
2012 by four members of the 38th Sustainment Brigade from the
Indiana National Guard:
W01 Moriah Addington (Running Queen)
1SG Jeramie Baty (Coach)
CW4 Chris Jennings (Godfather)
Cw2 Darren Minnemann (Instigator)
According Facebook, some of the original members [Credit: Kuwait Running Mafia facebook page] |
From the founding memo: “The KMR is about fun. It is about
setting and achieving goals and helping others to do the same. It's about
inspiring and being inspired through others and running. It is just a small
community of runners deployed to Kuwait that want to get together and share
their love for running or just want someone to run with to push themselves a
little harder.”
Original membership requirements included
- running 100 miles;
- doing a marathon of volunteer work (26 hours); and,
- running a race or training run of at least 13.1 miles.
The requirements had been dropped or forgotten by the time
that I started running with the KRM although I would say that most of our core
members have more than met them. We do not do as many volunteer races as the
original crew did because the MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) office does
a great job of putting on 3 -4 races every month (although we still snuck a few
in).
Vigil and Sam handing out fruit at the Bataan Death March |
Continuity
The good news about deployments is that they come to an end.
Depending on your service this can be from six months to a year. This presents
a challenge though for a loose knit running club that seeks to have membership
across many different units.
I decided that the key was to be continuously on the lookout
for other leaders. You cannot do this club with just one person. Military jobs
are unpredictable both daily (in making it to the runs) and overall (Surprise,
you’re going to Iraq!) . I suspect I used a similar checklist to my
predecessor:
- Shows up regularly at the runs: You need someone who can be counted on to bring shirts, water, etc.
- Come to you with ideas for things the club can do: Fair warning, if you came to me with a good idea, you were in danger of being recruited to the Dons of the KRM.
Volunteer to organize a pasta dinner = KRM Don |
Another challenge was continuity of emails. When I arrived
the KRM distro list was just “replying all” to the last weekly email. With more
than one person in charge this was a challenge with people who wanted to be
added or dropped. It also made it hard to keep records of folks that we talked
to back in the states for shadow runs and ordering team t-shirts. So I created
a gmail account, put in that week’s distro list and gave out the password to
the fellow dons.
A common folder was a bit of a challenge too. The previous
one was in the sustainment brigades’ server – which I could read but not edit.
So I made a folder on the common drive that I hope everyone can get edit access
to. Something like dropbox would have been ideal, but it cannot be accessed on
military networks.
A final piece was the Facebook page. For reason known only
to them, the founding members did not let us become administrators of their original
page. So Charles made another Facebook page. It’s a bit
confusing, but it's clear which one is the more active page.
Spreading the Good Word
At first I stuck with what worked for me: posters at the
gym, USO, Post Exchange, MWR community center and USO. We also found
advertising of the Camp Arifjan Craigslist (a Facebook page) to be effective.
Drawing them in at the Resiliency Expo |
But what really worked was in-person events. The first boost
came when we teamed up with the 13th Sustainment Brigade to host a
shadow run of the Army Marathon. Then fortune smiled again when we were able to
get a booth at the Resiliency Expo. This was a day-long event where various
organizations put up booths talking about how their organizations played a part
in reducing or dealing with stress - and as many KRM members have said: Running,
because hitting people is frowned upon.
Weekly Run Numbers |
Fun Over Speed
I was fortunate to become part of a running club instead of
founding it. Coming from Boulder and before, running clubs to me were mostly
speedworks and long runs. Had I tried that, the "Arifjan Track Club" would have
had 2-6 regular members and been a low-grade affair. Fortunately, the folks
before me realized that a mellow 3 – 6 miles was a much better way to bring
people in. I started up a Tuesday speedwork (and stole the name Track Trashing
Tuesday from the Rocky Mountain Runners) but it never got more than a
half-dozen folks and was often just two or three of us.
Two key parts of the fun was the weekly emails. Again, the
KRM was fortunate to have folks other than myself who were more skilled in
writing witty and fun emails with good humor and (for a while) cat facts.
Chris "Cat Man" Cruise. KRM Don. Saver of catz. |
The pizza after the runs was one of the best additions that
happened while I was at the KRM. One of leaders, Chief Bolan, started getting
pizza and having it at the finish of our runs. In my favorite KRM quote, one of
members noted “this whole time I had though my body wanted water at the ends of
runs, it turns out it really wanted pizza.” Then one day Chris was taking a
while to get the pizza and so we went down
to help him by standing over him and watching until he got the pizza.
Thus was born the tradition of taking over the pavilion and sitting down like
civilized starving runners.
It's not just an excuse for pizza. . . but that's part of it |
Fun Experiments
Even a running club does not live on simple runs alone. We started branch out with a movie night (Run Fat Boy Run), a talk from the post dietician and a cookout. If someone had an idea we usually, well, ran with it.
End of some more good feasting |
Two fun experiments that would be worth repeating at some
point was the first Camp Arifjan Chem Light Hash and the Near-Beer Near-Mile.
Both are fun running traditions that we adapted for the realities of Kuwait.
I wanted to show folks the fun of a good hash run but I was
leary of using the traditional hashing trail marker of flour. Even though most
of us have all sorts of great shots thanks to the military, I was worried that
some folks just would not take a bit of Anthrax humor. Our runs, even in the summer, are in the dark
so we decided to try chem lights. I laid a weaving trail through the less
inhabited parts of Camp Arifjan and folks followed as best they could. We
learned that you need a LOT of chem lights – probably 15 -20 a mile. And that
local workers like to pick up your hard laid trail. But since there was no real
beer involved I was not punished too much for laying the trail.
Before I left I decided to do a near-beer mile. While we
could not follow the rules precisely, I figured we would still suffer the
carbonation and volume. It turned out even mentioning near-beer can double the
attendance of a track workout – a useful thing to keep in mind I guess. It was
an experiment worth repeating.
JD starts as lap as others nurse their O'Douls |
Final Thanks
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably involved in the KRM
and know I would be remiss in not thanking a few key folks.
Charles Noble – for keeping the club together after the
founders left and even bringing in a stray engineer
running club.
Jack Bolan – for taking over from Charles and starting the pizza
tradition.
Chris “cat man” Cruise – for starting the witty and amusing
emails and keeping things fun.
Sam – For taking over the emails and setting us up at the
resiliency expo. And taking the torch for the club.
Tom – for taking the KRM gear and part of the leadership mantle.
Good luck, run strong, and
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