English professor dives in Running in a Triathlon with determination

Teaching can be a challenge within itself. Then again, so can swimming, biking and running over 140 miles combined in the span of a single day.

Chris Corning, an adjunct professor of English at Pierce College, looks to tackle both of these challenges this semester.

Corning, 33, started working at Pierce in 2013 and is currently teaching English 21 and 28.

Outside of teaching, Corning has run four marathons in the last year and a half and is currently training for the upcoming Ironman Triathlon held in Cozumel, Mexico on Nov. 30.

The Ironman Triathlon consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a full 26.2-mile marathon all done in one day.

Although it’s Corning’s first time participating in the triathlon ,he is preparing himself for the challenges that will arise.

“It’s going to be 15 hours of hell,” Corning said.

Growing up just south of Chicago, Illinois, Corning earned his bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

He eventually moved to California in 2006, and went on to earn his master’s in the same subject from California State University, Northridge in 2010.

In addition to teaching, Corning also works full-time as a project coordinator for a non-profit organization aimed to help those who are recovering from substance abuse.

However, the sedentary nature of this job led to him to gain extra weight and in turn he started running to lose some of that weight.

“Between working a desk job and teaching online classes, I was doing a lot of things where I was just sitting around,” Corning said. “I reached that age where I couldn’t just sit around and eat the way I like to eat. I needed to do something active.”

Corning mentioned he was never very athletic until he started trying to lose the excess weight he gained.

Although he began with simple weekly jogs, Corning soon developed a passion for running that motivated him to enter the Los Angeles Marathon in 2013.

He has completed three additional full marathons since the Orange County Marathon, Surf City Marathon, and the LA Marathon for a second time in addition to several 10k runs.

During the 2014 LA Marathon, Corning almost quit after reaggravating a calf injury that he originally suffered while participating in the Surf City

Marathon.

“I had actually posted on Facebook that I was quitting and walking off the course, but then I ran into a couple of people from my running club who were walking and said they would walk with me if I was OK to continue, and that kept me going,” Corning said. “I limped the last 12 miles of the race.”

Jennifer Hendershot, a friend and training partner of Corning, praised his fortitude at the LA Marathon.

“It takes dedication and determination to complete any event, especially with an injury,” Hendershot said.

“When he puts his mind to something, he gets it done.”

One employee, 24-year-old Pierce student Fernanda Gonzalez, has been working at the farm center for 8 years.

“I started as a ride operator when I was 17, but since then I started working with animals, especially the ponies,” Gonzalez said. “We get a lot of students in the animal section and we love to have them here, especially little kids. They come and learn a lot of new stuff.”

Fernandez said that working with horses at Pierce inspired her to pursue a major in equine science, the study of horses. She said her favorite part of working at the Farm Center is interacting and teaching kids who come and visit on field trips.

Another farm employee, 22-year-old Kate Donovan, recalled visiting the farm center with her father when she was younger.

“My dad and I would always come here to pick the strawberries,” Donovan said. “The strawberries were my fondest memory of this place.”

Donovan also said that the current celebration brought many familiar faces back to the Farm Center in recent weeks.

“Everyone from the past, especially employees, have been coming by because it’s our ten-year, and they’re all surprised about how much bigger we’ve gotten since our first year,” Donovan said.

Though the Farm Center’s anniversary celebration has been tainted by the earlier announcement that it will be closing after this year, McBroom said that the mood for visitors is still a happy one.

“I don’t want it to be depressing,” McBroom said. “The harvest is always a culmination of the hard work of the year. In modern times, it has evolved into larger celebrations of Halloween and all the different things we do now. It’s a great environment.”

McBroom’s wife, Cathy, who also serves as the codirector of the Farm Center, said she’s been pleased with the community’s response to the Farm Center since it opened.

“The community’s response has been pretty consistent from opening until now,” Cathy McBroom said. “They love it. They believe in it. They invest in it. We’re in our tenth year and they’re still coming.”

As the Farm Center moves toward its impending closure, the McBrooms said they are happy with the “family” they have created through the Farm Center, and hope that its spirit and lessons stick with those who visited it over the years.

“We have set family traditions,” Cathy McBroom said. “We’ve seen the customers’ children grow up, as well as our own staff that have come back and are taking courses at Pierce College themselves. They won’t walk away from the family that we’ve all become.”

The Farm Center’s Halloween Harvest Festival ends Nov. 2.