{"id":1291,"date":"2018-10-22T13:51:16","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T20:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/?p=1291"},"modified":"2018-10-22T14:28:56","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T21:28:56","slug":"running-the-race-richard-carvalho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/2018\/10\/22\/running-the-race-richard-carvalho\/","title":{"rendered":"Marathons & Maintenance | Richard Carvalho"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether it\u2019s repairing electric engines or running an ultramarathon, Richard Carvalho (Equipment Repair Supervisor, Caretaking) connects the dots between problem-solving and managing your mind. As an 11-year veteran of Lethbridge\u2019s Lost Soul Marathon, Richard is adept at keeping his mind and body under control. He applies those principles to his work here at uLethbridge, and that\u2019s why he\u2019s this week\u2019s Inspiring Light.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeptember\u2019s race was my 11th year completing the 100 m\"\"ile Lost Soul Marathon. It was a tough one, but I had to finish it.<\/p>\n

Each year is different. That\u2019s what I like about it. Your body and mindset react differently in every race you do. You run all day and through the night so you start in the morning at a steady pace, not too fast and not too slow. You\u2019re looking at a long distance. Initially, you can do it on muscle memory and training but in the second half, your body starts breaking down with aches, pains and muscle fatigue and that\u2019s when your mind has to take over.<\/p>\n

You experience different challenges and you learn how to overcome them or cope with them. You can put your body through a lot, but in the end,\u00a0it\u2019s your mind you have to deal with.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve run four Marathons (26 miles) and close to 20 ultra marathons since 2001. I usually finish at the 25 to 30-hour mark. That\u2019s slow, compared to elite runners, but I\u2019m not elite \u2013 I do it for fun and just to challenge myself.<\/p>\n

You go through a lot of highs and lows during the race. It\u2019s a process of seeing how many you can get through without giving up. It relates well to my work here as the Equipment Repair Supervisor. I\u2019m problem-solving every day. Any challenge I come up against, it\u2019s like a brick wall and there are various ways to approach getting around or over it. Finding a new way to overcome a challenge when you think you\u2019ve exhausted every avenue is very satisfying.<\/p>\n

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We have hundreds of pieces of equipment from vacuums to large floor scrubbing machines. Everything has to be checked to make sure it doesn\u2019t break down at an inopportune time, so there\u2019s a lot of preventative maintenance to do every day. Anything to do with electric motors and electro-mechanic equipment gets brought to me. Sometimes we either can\u2019t get new parts or we\u2019re working on a piece of equipment that we need to keep limping along, so we try to modify it or build a part for it. I find so much enjoyment in that.<\/p>\n

I feel so appreciated in my work here at the University of Lethbridge. There\u2019s a broad spectrum of people here that I enjoy, and I run with faculty members and people from my department. I appreciate that we all have different hobbies and aspects of our lives, but fundamentally we are similar in so many ways.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether it\u2019s repairing electric engines or running an ultramarathon, Richard Carvalho (Equipment Repair Supervisor, Caretaking) connects the dots between problem-solving and managing your mind. As an 11-year veteran of Lethbridge\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":1301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/240"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1291"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1303,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions\/1303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.ulethbridge.ca\/inspiring-lights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}