Howdy! Welcome to my blog!
About me: My name is Jen. I’m a former developmental biologist who took a 3-year career detour and am now back in the world of scientific research. Born in Taiwan, I moved to the States when I was 6 and spent my formative years in Maryland, then North Carolina. In 2005, I moved across the country to California to continue my research training at Berkeley. I now consider myself an East Bay girl, having lived in Berkeley, Oakland, and now Hayward. I’m extremely fortunate to have a very supportive husband (alias: the Gypsy Runner) and one very handsome cat (make that two) in my life.
About my running history: The short story is that I’ve been running on and off for the past 15 years, racing occasionally. I became addicted more committed to the sport after running the 2012 Oakland Half Marathon. In 2012, I ran 16 races including my first marathon, the California International Marathon. I also went from running 50-100 miles a year to topping 800 miles in 2012. One purpose of this blog is to document my journey as I continue to develop into a more “serious” runner. (For the long story of my running background, click here.)
About this blog: I have another blog (poor scientist. will blog 4 food.) where I’ve been writing since 2008, but as its main focus is food, I didn’t want to hijack it with lots of running posts. Started in April, 2012, Running Tangents is a place for me to gather my running-related thoughts and track my training, but I hope it will also be informative and even entertaining (!) on occasion. It would also be great to meet and interact with other runners through this blog — (non-robot-generated) comments are always welcome!
About the name:This blog was originally called, “Jen’s Running Adventures.” Let’s just say creativity has never been my forte. All of the good (i.e., obvious) blog names were taken, so I kept brainstorming until I came up with the name “Running Tangents.” It’s short, to the point, and pretty darn clever (if I do say so myself!). In case you’re not clear on what I mean, see below:
TANGENT [tan-juhnt]
adjective
1. Geometry:
a. touching at a single point, as a tangent in relation to a curve or surface.
b. in contact along a single line or element, as a plane with a cylinder.
2. Idiom: “off on/at a tangent,” digressing suddenly from one course of action or thought and turning to another
3. Running: a straight line that just touches a curve. i.e. to “run the tangents” means running the shortest but still “legal” distance for a race.
These are a few of my favorite things:
- Favorite posts:
- Favorite mottos (in running and in life):
- “The hills pay the bills.“
- “You’ve got to be in it to win it.”
- “Go big or go home.”
- “Sharing is caring.”
- noodles
- spreadsheets
- reading race recaps
Questions/comments/suggestions? Please leave a comment anywhere on the blog, or email me at willblog4food [at] gmail [dot] com
Happy reading and happy running too!
Running Tangents 
Hi Jen,
I came across your blog and wanted to reach out and ask for your help. In 2010 San Francisco General Hospital saved my life. I was riding my bicycle on Valencia, on my way to work, and got into a terrible wreck. I hit a rock in the road, lost complete control of the bicycle and went the back window of a parked car. I cut my neck wide open (24 cm), slicing my jugular vein and lost 5 liters of blood on the scene. I was rushed to SFGH where, on the second day on the operating table, I had a stroke and nearly died.
This year, I’m turning 30 and I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for the amazing work they did for me at SFGH that day. So rather than doing something garish for my 30th birthday (i.e. spend way too much money in Vegas), I wanted to do something to show my gratitude to the hospital and give something back. So I’m organizing a 30k fun-run, while trying to raise $30k for SFGH’s Foundation. I’m calling it “The 30/30 Run”. 30 years, 30k run, raising $30k…The 30/30 run. The race itself is on Sunday September 28, 2014 @ Ft. Funston.
I’ve created a website for the event where users can register for the run and can donate directly to the foundation. All donations are processed through the hospital’s GoFundMe page, so they are getting 100% of the donations. My goal is to get 1,000 people to donate $30/each to support this vital city institution and to keep SFGH thriving for all San Franciscans who may need Emergency Medical Services and the other incredible, life-saving, services they provide.
I’m reaching out to you to ask if you’d be willing to First, run The 30/30 run, and second, seeing if you’d be interested in writing a blog post about The 30/30 run to help me help San Francisco General Hospital. Check out the site! There’s a video there that the foundation produced for a fundraiser in 2011 that tells my story (along with others)…it’s pretty sad…my mom cries in it. Still hard for me to watch…but a good piece nonetheless
I’m available to talk further about details on the accident, the recovery, the concept for the race, whatever you need to help best tell the story to your readers! My contact information is below along with the URL & Twitter info.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Best Regards,
Antonio Garcia
415-596-7393
3030run@gmail.com
http://www.3030run.org
Twitter: @3030run
Hi Jen! I stumbled across your site while looking for people’s opinions of MAF training, and I noticed that we have a lot of similarities! A 30 something bay area girl that ran a billion races, and is trying out MAF to build an aerobic base. 😛 Anyway, if you’re interested, I’d love to connect and maybe we can even do a race! The website I started is http://www.runlittlegoat.blogspot.com if you’re interested. 🙂
Hi Heather! Thanks for stopping by! I’ll have to check out your blog. 🙂 Hopefully I’ll see you around?
Hi Jen
I’m organizing a running retreat in Napa on April 24-26 with Olympian Magda Boulet. It will include yoga for runners. The FB page is http://www.facebook.com/runvoyages and the website is runvoyages.com. I’d love for more of these types of healthy training getaways to happen. I’m also looking for ideas for locations for future retreats.
-Adam