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Runner of the Month

Runner of the Month


Runner of the Month is a series of short interviews with various athletes from Focus-N-Fly to highlight their success and the motivation they use to keep running.

John Micek III

Written by Dena Evans March 17, 2009

The oldest of six siblings, John was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, originally heading west to attend Santa Clara University.  Enrolling with a scholarship for athletic training, he retains the ability to tape an ankle in approximately 18 seconds.  John attended law school just up the road at University of San Francisco, following a two-year stint at a Jesuit-run community outreach program in Seattle.   His career as an attorney has taken him through a variety of in-house counsel and corporate roles, and he presently serves as Managing Director of Silicon Prairie Partners, a venture fund based in Palo Alto.  John has four kids, aged 17-30.  Recently turned 56, he freely admits to exulting in an age group win at a local trail race despite finding out later that only one other person his age had entered.



Tina Chase

Written by Dena Evans February 20, 2009

Tina hails from Amesbury, a small town in England near Salisbury and Stonehenge.  From an all-girls high school, she went on to St. Hilda’s College at University of Oxford, where she studied metallurgy and material science.  After graduation, she got into programming, and eventually came to the United States in 1985. Tina now works for Wells Fargo in San Francisco, in a division that manages small business credit.  She’s married to a husband who runs, and enjoys hanging out on Ocean Beach with her English chocolate Lab, who doesn’t.  On Superbowl Sunday, she used her home field advantage well, finishing the Kaiser Half-Marathon in 1:32:45, her fastest Half in seven years and quick enough for fifth place age group honors.



Tom Hancock

Written by Dena Evans January 20, 2009

Tom lives outside of Boston in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he writes computer programs that pick stocks for a money management firm.  Because his company did well enough relative to the market in 2008, he remains in good enough humor to serve as our January 2009 Athlete in Focus.

Tom grew up in nearby Storrs, Connecticut before moving on to Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York and then Harvard for graduate school in Computer Science.   He has two kids, aged 16 and 13, and is engaged to be married this February.  Tom also holds the distinction of beating Tom McGlynn in a race (Philadelphia Marathon 2006), when he set his personal best of 3:21.

 



Helen Kao

Written by Dena Evans December 22, 2008

Helen Kao is Assistant Professor of Medicine in Geriatrics at UC San Francisco Medical
School.  She has been a regular member of the Palo Alto Focus-N-Fly group for over two years.  Helen is coming off of a very successful fall, including a personal best of 3:15:26 at the Twin Cities
Marathon in October.  She also likes to do hand stands.



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