Strava Track Club members are engaged in a wide variety of vocational and other pursuits in addition to their running. Find out more about our team in our new weekly feature, Meet the Team. This week's athlete is Haines, Alaska native, Cornell alum, and current Stanford graduate student, Chandler Kemp.
I love running with Strava Track Club because it provides like-minded training partners who are passionate about running and simultaneously pursuing other ambitions. I'm currently a graduate student studying Energy Resource Engineering, trying to reform the way energy resources are exploited. I run simply because it makes me happy. No matter what's happening in my life, an hour spent easy running on a trail or through a neighborhood makes my day better. Getting on the track and running fast every week reminds me what it feels like to do physical work; and racing gives me a chance to cut loose and be competitive. In the face of an office job and pleasantries, running keeps me wild!
I started running with my mom when I was around 8 years old. I grew up in a small town in Southeast Alaska that's blessed with incredible mountains and mind-blowing beauty. Running is a wonderful way to explore that place, and being fit makes it a fun town to call home. Since leaving home seven years ago, I've carried running with me everywhere I go. I spent four years living in Ithaca, NY, and found constant joy in running along the gorges and through the beautiful autumn colors of the East Coast. During a winter in Fairbanks, Alaska I had great adventures running under the northern lights on roughly groomed dog mushing trails; those frolics through the woods kept me excited through dark nights that started shortly after noon. And during three months spent researching rural energy in Borneo, running gave me a chance to see parts of the community that I otherwise never would have discovered. Today, running up the hills in Wunderlich or through the marshes in Baylands keeps me connected to the place I grew up in and reminds me of the joy I find in the outdoors. There are great places to run in the Bay, and that's what keeps me going.