Welcome to the Upstate Race Series Podcast. I’m Matthew Hammersmith, and this is your trailhead for running in the Upstate of South Carolina. Here we talk races, training, community, and the stories that happen between the start and the finish lines. Whether you’re chasing a PR, chasing a sunrise, or just chasing your friends down the trail, you’re in the right place. Let’s get into it.
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Upstate Ultra SeriesOn quiet Sunday mornings, I find myself winding through the trails of Lake Conestee Nature Park. These recovery runs have turned into a rhythm for me, part ritual, part therapy. Early in the run, my mind tends to drift backward. I replay the past week: the miles I got in, the moments that mattered, the little setbacks, the small wins.
And then, somewhere near the final stretch, my thoughts start leaning forward. Toward the races ahead. Toward the athletes I coach. Toward whatever challenge is waiting just beyond the horizon. It’s funny how that works, my legs follow my thoughts. My pace doesn’t pick up because I’m trying to run harder. It picks up because I’m starting to believe in what’s next.
And the trail has a way of telling its own story, too.
If you’ve ever been out on the Henderson Farm loop, you’ve seen it: young saplings standing beside towering older trees, the ones that look like they’ve been there forever. Trees that have taken their share of storms, droughts, heat, cold, and change, and they’re still standing.
Sometimes I’ll look at them and wonder, did someone run past these same trees two hundred years ago? Lost in thought the same way I am. Dreaming forward, even back then.
Because like those trees, runners get weathered.
From the first stride, we start collecting seasons. Highs and lows. Injuries and comebacks. Confidence and doubt. And if you’ve been in this long enough, you know exactly what I mean when I say there are seasons where you feel like you fell away from the sport, like a tree that went down in the woods and got left behind.
But then spring shows up.
Not always on the calendar, but in your spirit. A little light. A reason to rise again. And in that rising, you find new life. Maybe not the same version of you that started, but a stronger one. A more honest one.
To be a weathered runner is to be a survivor.
Runners are resilient people. We keep showing up. We train through cold dawns and sweltering afternoons. We run in that bone-chilling rain that soaks you straight through. We move through the dark stillness of November when the world feels quiet and heavy. We grow in places nobody expects, and sometimes we surprise ourselves most of all.
We root deep. We endure what we can’t control. And we keep pushing upward. Not because it’s easy, but because something in us needs it.
And look, finisher medals shine. They’re cool, they’re meaningful, they look great hanging on a wall. But so do the struggles.
I tell my athletes this all the time: the finish line is not the point. You might forget the exact moment your foot hits that final timing mat. What stays with you is everything that happened before it. The quiet grind. The early alarms. The runs you didn’t feel like doing. The people who showed up with you. The personal growth you didn’t even notice until later.
That’s what imprints itself on you. That’s what builds you.
I’ll be out on the Swamp Rabbit Trail sometimes and watch runners go by, and I’m not thinking about their pace or their form. I’m thinking about their resilience. Because every runner you pass, or who passes you, has been shaped by unseen forces. Life presses in from every direction, and still, there they are. Moving forward. Upright. Alive.