Tag: running

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Badlands Fast

By Michael Zimny

Lance Smith attempts a Fastest Known Time in the Badlands’ Sage Creek Wilderness.

You won’t find the”Sage Creek Wilderness Loop” on any map of Badlands National Park. There is no official trail or signage. Lance Smith of Sioux Falls had hiked the area numerous times with his son, and thought that others might enjoy the scenery, if they knew about it.

“So I went on my own and decided to see how fast I could do it,” Smith says.”And the FKT (Fastest Known Time) website put it up as a route.”

He put up a time to beat, and somebody did.

“I did a great time, I thought. But then a guy named John Haak went out and beat the time I put up by 56 minutes or so.”

Haak beat Smith’s time just two weeks later, in an area of the park that sees very little foot traffic, beyond a small area around the Conata Picnic Area.

“The first time I did it, I wanted to spend some time trying to get some good pictures, video, just to try to entice some other people potentially to do it,” says Smith.”Because the Badlands can be a place that a lot of people don’t think of doing this type of thing.”

Smith returned recently and reclaimed his Fastest Known Time (FKT), clocking 3 hours, 27 minutes, 8 seconds on the 22-ish mile loop. Still, his record may not last for long, and that’s fine by him.”It’s really fostering this competition like, ‘Hey, I did this. Now you go beat me.’ When that person beats you, you congratulate them. Then if you want, you can go back and try to beat that person again.”

There are currently five routes listed on the latest iteration of fastestknowntime.com: the Centennial Trail, a Black Elk Peak out-and-back, the Run Across South Dakota, the Sage Creek Wilderness Loop and the Mickelson Trail (for which no winning time is listed as yet). Other than the initial FKT for the Black Elk Peak route, set by Jeff Valliere in 2017, all listed times were logged in 2020.

FKT’s have been gaining in popularity, nationally and around the world, since the early 2000s — especially on well-known, signed trail systems like the Appalachian Trail. The FKT world witnessed a tsunami of new fastest time submissions in 2020.”It blew up so much because of COVID,” says Smith, who also holds the FKT for the Centennial Trail.”All the races that people like to participate in got canceled, postponed. People are looking to get out to kind of push themselves, experience something.”

Smith says he’s interested in pioneering more off-trail routes.”There’s some really cool landscapes that we have in South Dakota. We just don’t have very many routes submitted to the website, which I’m hoping to maybe create.”

Finding a good route is about more than just picking a place to run, says Smith.”It has to have good aesthetics, be fun, challenging. Anybody can go out and run from point A to point B. I’m kind of looking in the Black Hills for some stuff to do. There are the Slim Buttes and the North and South Cave Hills. I’ve kind of been looking at how to link those two distinct areas together with a run.

“I would hope that maybe some other people see this as an avenue of sharing some cool adventure running or hiking that they’ve done with others.”

Michael Zimny is a content producer for South Dakota Public Broadcasting and is based in Rapid City. He blogs for SDPB and contributes columns to the South Dakota Magazine website.

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Muddy Fun Run

By Rebecca Johnson

The first annual Lewis & Clark Adventure Race was held west of Yankton this past Saturday. It’s an obstacle-style 5k held on the Lewis & Clark Scout Camp.

I love running 5k races but when I first heard about this one I was not interested. Potential obstacles like climbing over a wall, belly crawling through mud under electrified wire and jumping into ice water sounded horrible. I prefer to stay relatively clean and dry on my runs. I don’t even like outdoor swimming unless it’s over 90 degrees. Why would I intentionally jump into ice water? Well, a friend invited me to run and I realized I didn’t want to miss out on this extreme experience with her.

I got an e-newsletter a week before the race showing a weight-lifting plan to help you get ready for obstacle-course racing. It hadn’t occurred to me to do any training besides running and by then it was too late! What was I getting myself into? By the time Saturday morning rolled around I was anxious to see what torture awaited me.

The race was challenging, but really quite fun. The course was mostly hilly trail-running with a small camp of obstacles in the middle and a few more toward the end. The mud was cold, and even smelly, but I had a blast. And I felt a sense of accomplishment from completing obstacles like carrying a big piece of driftwood, climbing a rope ladder and sliding down a fireman’s pole. Oh, and the wire wasn’t really electrified. There was just a sign saying”Danger: High Voltage” to scare you. What a relief!

If you’re considering doing a mud run or adventure race, gather a group of friends and go for it! The race probably isn’t as hard as you think and you’ll have an amazing time with stories to tell.

Here are some upcoming obstacle-style races around the state —

Black Hills Mud Run — Sturgis, June 1 & September 14

Dakota Mud Run — Hot Springs, July 6

MudChug — Sioux Falls, August 3

South Dakota Mudathlon — Sioux Falls, August 24

Rumble on the Ranch — Watertown, September 7

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Mystic Mountain Run

Nathan Schock and Mystic Mountain Run founder Jim Brown at the post-race picnic.

By Nathan Schock

The year that I was born, 1974, construction was completed on my grandparents’ vacation home in Mystic Valley, which is nestled in the heart of the Black Hills, about 20 miles west of Rapid City. My grandparents have since passed away and the home has been passed on to my father and his siblings. Still, family vacations have taken me there at least once a year, first as a child and now as a father.

Three years before that home was built, Jim Brown started a road race just a mile up the valley. So in 1971, 21 runners competed in the first Mystic Mountain Run, which makes it the longest running race in western South Dakota. Brown placed sixth.

I first heard of the race as a young boy vacationing in the Black Hills. Our vacations always included a lot of hiking — at least one long one per day. If soccer season in my hometown of Sioux Falls was approaching, we added”soccer climbs” which were comprised of climbing 220 feet over a quarter of a mile as fast as we could. Still, I had never run the race. Until this year.

About a year and a half ago, I was part of a national trend of people getting back into running. A three-sport athlete in high school and a varsity college soccer player, I finally came to terms with the fact that my body could no longer handle the physical beating that came with those sports. But I needed a way to stay in shape and an outlet for my competitive drive. Running was the one thing left I could do, so I started with a 5k. Halfway through 2012, I have already competed in a 5k and two 10ks. Now, I’m training to run in the Sioux Falls Half Marathon.

But it just happened that this year’s family vacation to the Black Hills ended on the same day as the Mystic Mountain Run. I had finally run out of excuses. It was time to run.

So on July 8, I joined 125 other runners for the 42nd annual installment of the race. Pre-race course directions came from the founder, Jim Brown.”It’s all right turns,” he said of the race course, which is a giant loop. I was half paying attention while I loosened up for the race and finished my Gatorade, but he caught my attention with,”You cross the creek twice. If you cross it more than twice, you’re lost.”

The race itself is as brutal as it is beautiful. It’s officially listed as an 8 mile course, but Runners’ Shop of Rapid City owner Dennis Lunsford said it’s closer to 7.5 miles.”We’ve never done a formal measurement,” said Lunsford, who has been helping with the race since he first ran it in 1979.”We never felt we needed to. Mystic is just Mystic.”

Runners are lulled into complacency by starting with a two mile run on Mystic Road that slopes gently down to the valley. But any sense of comfort is quickly shattered when you cross the Mickelson Trail and start climbing the mountain. And keep climbing. And climbing. In fact, the entire third mile of the race is uphill, as runners (“walkers” would be a more accurate description for me at this point) climb more than 750 feet. My treadmill doesn’t have a setting that duplicates that incline.

As I hurtled down that final descent, my quadriceps were about ready to mutiny and find some other, more sane body to inhabit.

The one benefit of slowing down for the climb was the spectacular view of Mystic Valley off to my left. Castle Creek was visible, winding between the Mickelson Trail and the service road that dead-ends at my family’s vacation home. The one drawback (besides the obvious) is that I was one of a handful of runners who got stung by a bee. As if the climb wasn’t difficult enough.

What awaits you at the top of that climb is an old logging road which guides your descent to a valley that is home to Slate Creek. After fording the creek twice (and only twice), we had one more mountain to climb. At the peak of that second mountain, runners have now climbed more than 1,000 feet and are rewarded with a bone-crunching 1.5 mile plunge to the finish line. As I hurtled down that final descent, my quadriceps were about ready to mutiny and find some other, more sane body to inhabit.

I ended up placing 11th out of the 126 runners that finished the race, which was good enough for third place in my age division of 30-39 year old males. My time of 58:48 was just a little more than ten minutes off the winning pace set by 22-year-old South Dakota State University runner Mike Krsnak, who has now won all three of the Mystic Mountain Runs in which he has participated.

A picnic for the runners and their families was held for runners and their families once the last person finished just over two hours after the 9 a.m. start. I had a chance to chat with the race’s founder, Jim Brown, who said he has only missed one of the 42 races.

Brown handed the majority of the responsibilities to Lunsford and the Runner’s Shop. Lunsford got involved purely out of the enjoyment of the race.”I just loved the atmosphere of it,” Lunsford said.”I love its rustic atmosphere. I helped for so long, that Jim thought I would be the person to turn it over to.”

Among the runners, there was also a family atmosphere. As we walked up to the starting line, the organizers asked for a show of hands on how many people had run it before. More than half the hands went up and many stayed up as they asked who had run in more than two races…five…ten. Even at 20 races, a few hands stayed in the air. During the picnic, it was obvious that this was a community of runners and this was their annual get-together.

As for me? I’m already looking at the second Sunday in July for my next family vacation to the Black Hills. It’s the most unique race I’ve ever run and unquestionably the hardest. Next year, I want to be one of those runners with a hand in the air, saying I’ve done this before.

If you want to join, check out The Runner’s Shop’s site for next year’s date.

About the author: Nathan Schock is a fourth-generation South Dakotan who resides in Sioux Falls with his wife Barb and their three daughters. Nathan is currently employed by Locals Love Us and in the past has worked in politics, higher education and renewable energy.

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Wearing o’ the Green Shoes

By Rebecca Johnson

I’m German, Norwegian and Dutch, but everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. And I can’t wait to celebrate at the St. Patty’s Day Mile in Sioux Falls. I’m actually running the 5 mile race. There’s a 5k too, or if you’re really tough you do the”Irishman” and run all three courses. It’s sort of like the Ironman, but shorter, drier and with funny costumes.

Race director is Steve Kurtenbach, owner of Allsportcentral, a leading business for road race and triathlon promotion. I’ve seen Kurtenbach at a lot of the races I’ve run, but I didn’t realize that the St. Patty’s Day Mile launched his successful company.

Kurtenbach owned Bay Technology Group in 2000.”We were looking for ways to show you could do entire businesses on the web and there weren’t a lot of examples,” says Kurtenbach. Bay Technology decided to promote the Phillips Avenue Mile before Sioux Falls’ St. Patrick’s Day Parade (the name was changed to the St. Patty’s Day Mile the following year.) Internet businesses were fairly new at that time and the intent was to show clients they were safe. The event was paper-free, offering registration, payment transactions and results entirely online.

“Once we started doing that and putting on the race we decided this is actually a pretty fun thing to do,” says Kurtenbach. Allsportcentral’s official launch was in July of 2000 with the”No Rest till Jazzfest” race. Kurtenbach closed Bay Technologies eight years ago to focus on Allsportcentral due to what I like to call the”fun factor.” The company now has clients worldwide and race organizers have the opportunity to hire Allsportcentral for onsite services like race timing and photography.”The majority of the events we travel to are in the five state area and a lot in the Caribbean,” he says.

But Kurtenbach will be close to home for Saturday’s race. Allsportcentral’s new offices are located at the 8th and Railroad Center in downtown Sioux Falls and all of Saturday’s races end nearby at 5th and Phillips Avenue. The post-race party is just across the street from the company’s new digs held at Monks House of Ale Repute.

You might make some money at the party if you are speedy. Anyone who breaks a course record or Irishman record is awarded at least $100. The mile’s course record is 4 minutes and 34 seconds. This year if a man finishes the mile in under four minutes, they’ll receive $100 for breaking the course record and an additional $500 for running the mile under four minutes. Women get the same opportunity for running it under 4 minutes and 30 seconds.

Overall race, age division, and costume contest winners are sure to by delighted by their leprechaun shoe trophies. Kurtenbach says they are made by a leprechaun cobbler that Allsportcentral pays with a pot of gold. Keep this on the down low, but Kurtenbach really makes the trophies with one of his good friends. They order the green shoes from suppliers and mount them on homemade bases. A participant who won two trophies was actually seen wearing them later on in the evening. The costume contest winners are chosen by loudest applause.”We’ve had people dressed up like life-sized Guinness bottles and hundreds of people dressed up like leprechauns,” says Kurtenbach. One year a guy dressed up as a green running shoe. I hope he comes back. I would like to see that.

And lest you think this event is just about silly debauchery, I should tell you that it also raises money for charity. Teams can fundraise in advance, and the team with the most participants gets $200 to donate to a charity of their choice. The charity is then added as one of the official event charities. Last year’s was Helping Hands for Haiti. Funds raised also go to the SDSU Nursing Student Association, and Augustana Athletic Training Students Association.

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Beresford’s Chilly Race

By Rebecca Johnson

Winter road races are few and far between in South Dakota, but runners have been able to count on the Beresford Frostbite Four since 1999. The fundraiser for the Beresford Booster Club, featuring a four-mile run and a two-mile run/walk, starts tomorrow at 11 a.m. Unofficial race director, Kevin Nelson, says this is a record year for participants.”As of today we have 370 pre-registered in the two races,” says Nelson.”That is a far cry from our first year with about 70 total.”

Three potential courses are marked in advance. Weather and wind direction on race day determines which one is used. Runners are bussed to whichever start gives the best chance of wind at your back. When I ran the four-mile race in 2009 I bundled up expecting the weather to live up to the race’s name, but it was practically balmy with temps in the high forties. Last year’s participants were treated to rain and ice, but the unpredictable conditions are part of the fun.

After the race is over, red-faced runners and walkers gather for a free chili and soup feed at the Bridges at Beresford golf course. The ceramic figurines of snowmen, penguins, polar bears and moose presented to the winners are highly coveted. But many participants are just as delighted to hear their name called for a door prize like a free t-shirt or box of golf balls. There’s still time to register at allsportcentral.com if you want to get in on the fun.

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You Have To Earn Your Pumpkin Pie Around Here

By Lee Schoenbeck

Now the perfectly good warmth of a Thanksgiving morn in front of a roaring fire with Snoopy and Bullwinkle and the rest of the Macy’s Parade ensemble is no more for many in our community, due to the Hiedeman family. As first impressions go, Steve and Patty seem like a normal couple, blessed with four beautiful and accomplished daughters, but there’s something a little unusual about the Hiedeman household. A few years ago they decided that the excesses of Thanksgiving dinner should be preceded by a family run — taking in the late November beauty that a northeastern South Dakota community has to offer. Over time, the little family run grew to an annual community event — the Hiedeman Turkey Day 5k. Until last year, the event was staged from the family garage in Northeast Watertown, plus a porta potty in the driveway. The awards ceremony took place in the two-stall garage, with the premium spots located near the space heaters. Awards are — of course — pumpkin pies. The good news — everybody that is there at the end gets hot apple cider and a piece of pumpkin pie.

But, this is no ordinary little run. In 2008 over 190 runners participated. Runners are encouraged to share their bounty, by bringing food stuffs for a local church food bank.

The field includes several NCAA Division I distance runners. The Heidemans’ daughter Caitlin married former SDSU standout quarterback, Ryan Berry, and Caitlin made her mark on the college running scene. Besides Caitlin’s friends and teammates, NDSU cross country coach Ryun Godfrey is a Watertown native, who apparently brings his team from Fargo to Watertown for the Heideman run, with the additional lure of a turkey feed at the home of Watertown running coach and father, Vic Godfrey.

In addition to the D-I caliber athletes, there are also the Very-Not-D-Anything “athletes” that heavily populate the 5k run and 2 mile walk — as well as the many family and friends there to cheer on the field. A buddy of mine dutifully trains for this event each year, always wondering if the first aid crew will be good enough to assure him survival to at least one last turkey dinner. It is ominous that the course routes the wheezing, frost-bitten participants through the local cemetery — seriously. To date, the Hiedemans’ web site reports no fatalities, and precious few egos injured in this festive community event.

Last year the infectious nature of the whole affair was tested by forecasts of deep sub-zero wind chills. Due to the growth of the event, prior to the forecast it had been relocated to the local Cornerstone Methodist Church Hall. As the weatherman predicted, the wind chill for the 2010 event was 28 degrees below zero, which made moving the start closer to the local cemetery seem even more fortuitous.

At this point, in more temperate climates, the Macy’s parade would have won out and the sane crowd would stay home. But up here on the Coteau, the rules are different. In true homesteader bloodline fashion, 107 South Dakotans (there were also a few North Dakota athletes looking for free turkey at the Godfrey house, and a guy and two gals from St. Joe, Missouri!) still competed. The crowd included housewives, children, whole families — and of course some not-exactly-D-Anything Athletes. You couldn’t help but wonder if the local mental health counseling program wasn’t a little under-promoted as these hardy souls raced in slightly clad running gear, at temperatures that cause perfectly good engines to seize up. But, the event was a frozen and smashing success.

A few years ago I started participating in this foolishness, and last year one of my college age children joined me in the race. Having cleared a half century and possessing two bad hips, I don’t train for these things. At my age, nothing good happens to your body from all that extra running, so. I focus on power-walking for the cardio endurance, and Aleve for the hips. Plus, because there is a farmer in my age group with nothing better to do all year than run down his township road like a bounding deer — I can’t win anyway.

But in the deep freeze of 2010 two special things happened. First, I beat my daughter to the finish line. Ok, I’m a realist. These are pyrrhic victories — eventually math and the calendar will change the placing in those finishes, so I take my victories while I can. But even more importantly, we’d left before the awards ceremony. Later that day a victor’s pumpkin pie was delivered to our home. Immediately realizing that the speeding farmer was surely the rightful owner of the over-50 pie, I did what any AARP-eligible athlete does when faced with the prospect of having to return a mistaken trophy — I took a bite out of it. There’s no chance they’d make me give back a pie that was missing a piece. Besides, all those calories wouldn’t affect my form, but surely would throw his lean frame off.

So now we approach 2011. The weather is forecast to be in the 40s, the kind of temps that even the folks south of the Mason-Dixon Line would run in. Having already won a pie, there’s little left to prove, almost. BOTH of my college age kids have now been training for this race. Dad’s time on top of the family running victor’s stand is probably numbered. Sure, I’ve already started my regiment of Aleve, and paced myself with a 5k warm up run last May (the hospital’s Heart Attack Hill Run is a story for another day). But the real power of writing is being able to pick when an epic ends.

Thursday is Thanksgiving. While I can’t predict the finish for tomorrow’s race (I’m just hoping they don’t have reason to leave me out in that cemetery) Today, I still feel good enough to share the Thanksgiving prayer from 1:Thessalonians:”In all things give thanks…”

Lee Schoenbeck grew up in Webster, practices law in Watertown, and is a freelance writer for the South Dakota Magazine website.

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Running with Parkinson’s

By Rebecca Johnson

Gary Pauley runs in his home town of Parker, SD.

Gary Pauley ran the Sioux Falls Half Marathon in September of 2010 in two hours and 10 minutes. A good race time for any 48-year-old, but Pauley has Parkinson’s Disease. Despite a 20-year Army career including multiple deployments to hostile areas, the Parker resident’s greatest challenge came at age 46 when he was diagnosed with the brain disorder. His symptoms included movement problems, shakiness and impaired balance. Pauley began a rigorous regimen of running and biking to help maintain his health.

As his condition worsened, exercise became harder and Pauley considered stopping running altogether.”I realized I needed to continue to exercise as long as possible in order to keep my quality of life,” says Pauley. He decided to have a deep brain stimulation (DBS) device implanted to help manage some of the disabling motor symptoms of his disease.”It offered me the best chance to reach a ‘new normal,'” he says.

The device was implanted in April of 2010 and activated in May. And his symptoms are not as noticeable as before.”I like when people who don’t know that I have Parkinson’s look at me and say I would have never guessed anything was wrong,” says Pauley.

After his surgery, Pauley came up with a”bucket list” of things he wanted to do. Running the half marathon was first on the list and his next big run is the Medtronic Twin Cities 10 mile on October 2nd in Minneapolis-St. Paul. He was chosen as one of this year’s 25 Medtronic Global Heroes – runners with implanted medical devices who continue to pursue their passions with the help of medical technology.

“I have pressed on through the progression of the disease and have managed to continue to do the activities I have always enjoyed,” says Pauley. I asked him if there is a race he is preparing for after the Twin Cities race.”There are a couple of short road races I am thinking about running in, but actually I am just trying to stay in good shape ’til high school basketball season starts,” he says. He officiates boys and girls basketball during the winter.”That’s primarily my workout for December through February.”

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Triple V Triathlon

By Rebecca Johnson

140 individuals and 17 relay teams conquered the 4th annual Triple V Triathlon last weekend in Yankton. The triathlon, named for the Latin phrase,”Veni, vidi, vici,” was started by Yankton locals Lynn Peterson and Dr. Lawrence Leon. Both had participated in several triathlons around the area.”We realized Yankton offers the perfect venue for this,” Peterson said.”We wanted to promote a great sport as well as all the benefits Yankton has to offer — the lake, river, beautiful bridges, historic downtown and campgrounds.”

My husband Jeremy participated in it as his first triathlon. He tried to talk me into doing it, too, but I’m not much of a swimmer and the chain doesn’t always stay on my bike. It’s definitely a hazard.

The race begins with a 1/4 mile swim in Lewis & Clark Lake near the marina. Athletes then bike over Gavins Point Dam, follow the Missouri River until they reach the Discovery Bridge, cross over the bridge to Yankton, and bike back to the transition area at the marina. The race ends with a 5k run on the bike trails along the lake. Approximately 25 volunteers help out along the course. I decided to participate by taking timing chips from the athletes at the finish line. It was fun greeting everyone at the end because a lot of them seemed very happy to see me.

Missouri River flooding didn’t affect the course, but Peterson said numbers were down for the first time in four years. The race directors fielded a lot of calls from people wondering how the water had been affected.”The South Dakota Parks Department did a great job informing us of water quality as they do daily tests,” said Peterson. There hadn’t been any tests showing the water was a hazard. My husband said he ran into some plant growth, but I think that sort of made it feel even more adventurous.

Yankton high school athlete Kipp Kinsley was the overall winner and Becky Youngberg from Eden Prairie, Minn., was the women’s top finisher. You can view a list of participants’ times at allsportcentral.com.