Meet musician-runners: Rhiannon Banerdt, Kristopher Tong, Maria Hadge

Rhiannon Banerdt

Rhiannon is a New York-based violinist in the Ulysses Quartet. She raced her first half marathon in November, and surprised herself with a 3rd place finish in her age group!

​​Q: Tell me about your running background and how you ended up signing up for a half marathon!

A: My “running background” is just a series of uncoordinated flailing periods of activity. The first time I started running in my undergrad, one summer I spent mostly at home with my parents feeling sorry for myself for not being at a festival. My mom would take me with her to the YMCA several days a week, where I was intimidated by the strength training machines—but I knew how a treadmill worked, so I borrowed some shoes that didn’t fit me very well and started running and didn’t stop until I gave myself a good case of tendinitis.

I started again at Kneisel Hall, where the Blue Hill 5k/Fun Run was an event every year. Running outside in the beautiful Maine countryside is what really got me hooked, and I kept running short to medium distances off and on for years after that.

A few years ago, my much smarter sister got into running and actually learned a few things about systematic training, stretching and recovery, and tried to advise me. I mostly ignored her, but the information stayed in the back of my head as the kind of thing smart, serious people do.

Earlier this year, I was going through a tough time in my personal life and started suffering from serious insomnia and anxiety. I would wake up early and have nowhere to put my energy, so I started running much more regularly. Once I was doing it more, I got a bee in my bonnet about setting goals. First, I wanted to get faster, so I starting looking up training tips and promptly pushed hard enough to injure myself, then I got the idea of upping mileage and training for a longer race than I’d done before (my previous max was 10K).

Q: What surprised you the most, either while training or racing?

A: A lot of things surprised me, like how many ways you can injure yourself by not knowing what you’re doing! I was surprised when I through the whole race without stopping. I’d never done more than 6 miles without a pretty good stretch and breathing break, and I didn’t really plan to in the race. The biggest surprise was definitely finding out that I had placed in my age category after feeling like I was at the back of the pack the whole time.

Q: How do your musical practice and running practice relate to each other? 

Not specific to running, but in general my physical health and stamina in my playing have improved dramatically since I started exercising more seriously. Back pain and a lot of other problems and annoyances have more or less melted away. I’ve found some parallels between the two that really reinforce each other, like learning to enjoy the meditative state of being fully present with something that engages both the body and the mind, and making a habit of doing something consistently that is better sometimes than others. On the flip side, I find it soothing to have something to work at that is just for me, where the quality and outcome of my work doesn’t affect my career or my life outside of the arbitrary goals I’ve set.

*Miki’s note: Injury was a prevailing theme in Rhiannon’s interview. One of the biggest benefits of working with a running coach is that they will objectively monitor your progress and increase duration/intensity in a measured way as to best prevent injury. As a subjective runner, it’s so easy to overdo it without even noticing, until one day the cumulative overload shows up as an injury.

Kristopher Tong

Kristopher is a violinist in the Borromeo String Quartet and on the strings faculty at New England Conservatory. 2023 will be his fourth Boston Marathon, where he PR’d in 2021 (2:53). He is also Miki’s husband and a big reason for why Miki got super into running over the last 3 years :)

Q: Tell me about your running history, and how you initially started.

A: I started running in 2010. I had been working in the quartet for a few years, and life on the road playing 100+ concerts a year was catching up to me: traveling, eating and sleeping poorly, not having enough time to warm up properly or practice well. I was at the end of my 20’s and my body was starting to fall apart, and I thought to myself, if I feel this way at the end of my 20’s, how will I feel at the end of my 30’s? From then on, I would get out on the roads in every new place we toured to- it became even more than just exercise, it was a way to be out in the world and participate in it. You get a sense of a place when you explore it on foot. I was hooked.

Q: What is the significance of the Boston Marathon to you? 

A: I came to Boston first for grad school and the only thing I knew about the marathon was seeing people in their space blankets on the T in April. Young people, old people, ordinary people really, they were all superheroes to me. When I became more serious about running and started marathoning the history and significance of the race became much more apparent. Living here too, it was very exciting to have my hometown become the center of the running world for a week. I had a long term goal of running it one day, and I actually qualified pretty early on, in the second marathon I ran, but I didn’t make the bubble that year and figured that I could just improve a bit and run it soon after…it ended up taking me two more years before I finally made it in. That was a tough stretch, I was in a difficult place in my life at that time and running and training became a pretty singular focus for me. By the time I actually got to run it for the first time in 2019 I was in a much better place; that day was a joyous day where I was just able to run with gratitude. I ended up having the race of my life and I PR’d by almost 10 minutes. I’ve run faster since, but that first Boston was really magical. Now I run it every year, and it’s always the best day to live in Boston!

Q: How do your music and running practice relate to each other? 

A: In a very immediate sense, running has improved my music making immensely. There are connections between the two in how you are using your body, how tempo and rhythm and our perception of space and time inform both. You are dealing with a lot of the same principles of using energy efficiently, and learning to recognize the difference between purposeful effort and that which is wasteful, and choosing the better technique, even when you don’t feel like it. Obviously a lot of discipline and self-awareness goes into both things. But in a much larger sense, both practices have deepened in a shared way over time, I think because on some level, both music and running are expressions of being very, very alive. I have experienced such intense pain and such intense joy while running, sometimes simultaneously! And all that we experience is fuel for the creative well which we draw from in our music making, which is really just a way of sharing and celebrating the ecstasy of being alive.

Q: Any tips for musicians trying to fit running into a busy life of performing & teaching? 

A: Just like anything else, it’s not going to happen unless you decide that it will. Scheduling out time for running is essential if you want to actually make it a part of your life. With that said, you also have to be willing to be flexible and be mentally ok with flexing in either direction. Shifting workouts and off-days for concerts and travel happens, that’s life. You can also surprise yourself with what you are capable of. I once had a red-eye which landed in Switzerland, followed by a train to the host’s house and a rehearsal four hours later. In between I ran a 22 miler because that was the only time it was going to happen. It was not my favorite day but it was definitely funny later on and worth it on race day!

Maria Hadge

Maria is a NY-based freelance cellist who can be heard in musicals & new music ensembles alike. Maria has raced 2 marathons, 7 half marathons, and countless shorter races.

Q: I think you’ve run more races than anyone I know! Tell me why you decided to sign up for your very first race, and why you decided to sign up for the last race you ran. 

A: I love this question because I get to talk about my badass friend, Emily! My first race was called the Hip Hop 5k/10k, which she started to raise money and awareness for hip dysplasia. Emily has hip dysplasia, which caused her to have over a dozen surgeries in her early 20s and now she uses a chair and crutches to move around. She's still one of the most active and adventurous people I know, she's always biking, kayaking, and skiing (she's fully an olympic-level mono skier). So I'm always inspired by her, and I wanted to support her cause. I ran the 10k, which at the time was the most daunting distance for me!

My last race was the Staten Island Half. I signed up for that because the half marathon distance is my favorite, and I needed a 9th New York Road Runners race to gain entry into the NYC Marathon next year! It was fast with great views, but it was in Staten Island.

Q: What’s your favorite race memory? 

A: It's hard to pick one! I think the start line of the NYC Marathon last year has to be up there. The energy was electric. You could feel how hard everyone had worked to get to that point. And just imagining the wild journey everyone experienced training in a pandemic was moving.

But I also have to shout out the Teddy Bear 5k I did in the summer where everyone ran carrying a bear! It was a sight to behold, running in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and just a parade of running teddy bears.

Q: How does running affect your life as a musician? 

A: Probably the biggest impact has been my mentality. I don’t know who said it first, but people always say “run your own race”. With running, it is totally useless for me to compare myself to anyone else but my past self (my legs are so short!). This mindset has really helped me shift away from constantly comparing myself to other musicians and instead just focus on what I can do to better myself and what I can maybe learn from them.

Q: You work part time at a running store! Do you have any hot shoe tips? 

A: Yes! Two shoes that I’m always excited for people to try on are the Asics Noosa-Tri 14 and the Magic Speed 2. Try them on in a store! They’re super fun. Noosa-Tri is light and bouncy and the Magic Speed is snappy and fully plated without the super shoe price tag.