My name is Nate, and I am stupid.

Running has been a major part of my life since my sophomore year of high school. I decided to try outdoor track that year. After dropping impressive times of 6:05 in the 1600m and 2:49 in the 800m I decided that I should probably stick with it. As my high school career progressed, I fell in love with the sport and improved quite a bit. Don’t get me wrong I was still extremely mid as a runner, but going into college, I wanted to compete seriously.

I joined club running at the first opportunity and truly wanted to compete at a high level with the club. However, quite simply, this was not meant to be. I was ruthlessly sidelined by injury my freshman year. First, severe food poisoning from the Moby Dick Kabob in Stamp that required me to get saline pumped into my arm in October. This incident was shortly followed by a season ending stress fracture in my shin. I was healthy to start the Spring semester until I broke my shoulder causing me to miss the first half of track.

These injuries did not turn me away from running, but it did change how I viewed it. I no longer really cared about competing or getting fast. I just did it because I liked it.  As running became a more casual aspect of my life, central pillars of my personality became intertwined with the activity. Most important of all of these traits was my daftness. I was no longer running to obtain PRs or win races. No. I was running to achieve maximum stupidity. Here is the roadmap to how I became the stupidest runner in Club Running history.

2/1/19

On a fateful night in the second semester of my freshman year I broke my shoulder. I am not going to go into specifics on how this happened. It just did. I was informed by doctors that the only physical activity I could do while in my sling was walking. I instantly decided to take this activity to the extreme.

I began training in the art of speed walking. This included tempo walks, fartlek walks, and long walks. This is when I started to become stupid. The first stupid physical activity I ever did was probably a 12:42 pace 10-mile walk done around lake artemisia on 12/17/2019. While completing this event I had an idea. I was going to power walk a 5k around lake artemisia and it was going to happen that Friday. The goal was sub 30 minutes.

2/22/19

I showed up to practice on a beautiful Friday afternoon ready for war. I did a warmup walk to the lake then just started freaking ripping it. I had been doing my training alone and out of view from the rest of the team, so no one really knew how fast I had gotten. Club running legend Shannon MacMaster and a few other people were running some lake loops that day and were shocked by my speed.

I looked like a complete psycho out there. My left arm was tightly wrapped in a sling. My right arm was violently swinging back and forth, and I was breathing HARD. Families were trying to enjoy the nice afternoon having picnics and shit and I would whip past them completely destroying the peaceful vibe of the day.

After about 2.5 laps of HELL the clock stopped at 29:09. That’s 9:24 per mile. It had hurt worse than any 5k I had ever run. I literally had to lay down in the middle of the trail when it was done to catch my breath. I walked back to SPH very proud of what I had accomplished on that February 22^nd unaware of how important this date would be.

2/22/20 (Exactly One Year Later)

During the year following my walk I did many other stupid things. For example, I attempted to walk onto the track at 2019 NIRCA Track nationals wearing the massive head of an easter bunny costume for a 1500m (Officials forced me to remove it right before the gun went off). However, I was also wearing Jorts with a carrot stashed in the back pocket that I ate as I crossed the finish line.

Matt, Matt, Matt and I ran to Popeyes during a practice early in the spring semester of 2020 to try one of their very hyped-up chicken sandwiches. (People were still getting stabbed over these things at the time). On the way back we had a brilliant idea. The Chicken Trifecta run. The premise was to start at Chick-Fil-A in Stamp and eat a sandwich there, run to the route 1 McDonalds and eat a McChicken there, run to the Adelphi Popeyes and eat a sandwich there, then finish at SPH. The only other rule? You have to carry the wrappers for each chicken sandwich for the entirety of the event. I decided to actually attempt this event a few Saturdays later on… 2/22/20.

When I first planned this event, I didn’t even realize it was one year exactly to the day of my epic struggle at Lake Artemisia. Club running legend Shannon MacMaster informed me of the coincidence when STRAVA provided her with a “one year ago today” memory of her activity on 2/22/2019 where she had mentioned by incredibly stupid achievement.

I attacked the chicken trifecta run that Saturday with moral support from Brian and Stas who ran/biked along side me. The Chick-Fil-A sandwich went down easy, and I ran the mile to McDonalds FAST. The McChicken went down EVEN FASTER. I was unstoppable. This was too easy. My pace slowed a bit on the uphill 2.5 miles to Popeyes, but spirits were still high. However, when I got their sandwich (The biggest and greasiest one) I ran into some serious problems. I had decided to affix the sandwich wrappers to my singlet using safety pins to avoid carrying them. So, there I was, sitting in a Popeyes with a Chick-Fil-A and McChicken wrapper attached to me STRUGGLING to eat this sandwich. Every bite felt like it was going to come back up.

I eventually decided to leave the restaurant and eat the rest in the parking lot due to serious concerns of possible vomiting. I was out there for TWENTY minutes. Luckily, I did not throw up though. The run back to SPH surprisingly didn’t feel too bad.

I finished that day stupider than I had ever been before. I endeavored to make it tradition that I complete a stupid event every February 22^nd.

2/22/21

I continued my stupidity over the next year. I invented the Ice Cream Trifecta run which was a 3-mile jaunt featuring the UMD Dairy, Cold Stone, and Rita’s. However, for all 365 of those 365 days one thing weighed on my mind. What was I going to do on February 22^nd?

Throughout that year my love for a route called Hills for Days became an obsession. I ran Hills for Days but Twice (two times in a row) which made the route “cursed” according to club running legend Michael Thomas. The only way to uncurse it? Run it three times in a row. So, one week later I ran hills for Days but thrice (about 17 miles) with an epic crew of Elliot, Sebs, and Jack. I also ran Hills for Days, but I go bald in the middle. I stopped at 8809 two miles into the run and had Stas shave my head. Yes, I know, all of this is very stupid.

After all of this stupidity on Hills for Days I knew what had to be done. Hills for Days, but it’s a marathon. The problem? A leap year led to 2/22/21 being on a Monday and I had class all day. The solution? Start the marathon 12:01am, the very first minute of this blessed day.

I decided to use 8809 as my home base for the event. I did the first of 3.5 laps with Brian. After that I was on my own. It was a VERY cold night, but it was peaceful. Just silence that really let me soak in the beauty of Hills for Days and the stupidity of what I was doing. Did I train for this? If you consider 20-mile weeks for the past few months as proper marathon training, then yes. At about mile 16 my body was pretty much done. The last 10 miles was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done. When I finally finished at around 4:15am I laid down in the road in front of 8809 much like I had at Lake artemisia two years earlier.

I was and still am pretty proud of this. It was my first marathon. In high school I used to dream about my first marathon being some flashy big-city race where I ran sub 3 hours and was essentially a beast of a physical specimen. Instead, I did it mostly alone, at midnight, in the freezing cold, and an hour and 15 minutes slower. But I didn’t care. In fact, I was super happy with it. Those were old Nate’s goals, and he was smart. This new Nate? He was stupid.

2/22/22

Throughout the past year I have become cemented as an idiot to most who know me. Doing 90% of my milage on one route (Extra Extra Short neighborhoods)? Dumb. Running Hills for Days at 3am after spirited nights at 8809 (one time in khakis, dress shoes, and a polo)? Idiotic. Rock Paper Scissors at the JMU XC finish line? Preposterous. But none of this was enough. I didn’t want to just be stupid. I wanted to be the stupidest of all time. 2/22/22 was approaching. One last ride was all I needed.

The largest coincidence of this unplanned tradition is that it all came to a conclusion on TWOsday 2/22/22. Probably the most blessed date that ever has and ever will occur. The perfect stage to cement my legacy and achieve what I had been working towards.

For years I had heard whispers about the Eppley Marathon. 26.2 miles (262 laps) of the Eppley indoor track. Many said that they wanted to attempt it, but none were ever stupid enough to do it. The more that I thought about it, the more I knew that this was the pinnacle of Club Running stupidity. People have done plenty of things that matched my Hills for Days marathon in stupidity.

Club Running Legend Jacob Grant did a canal marathon at the start of COVID. Club Running Legend Shannon MacMaster did the infamous Lot 11 marathon around the same time. Dumb half marathons and stupid full marathons (1 mile, on the hour, every hour until the distance is covered) have been done multiple times now. As far as I was concerned the Eppley Marathon was the last frontier.

I began seriously thinking about it towards the end of the fall 2020 semester. As winter break came and went the date drew closer FAST. I was no where near ready in the week leading up to 2/22/22. I had been doing 15 miles a week tops for the past few months. It was on Friday, 2/18/22 when I officially decided I was not going to do it. I was just going to let the tradition die and fade away in silence. It had been a good run, but it was over.

On Monday morning 2/21/22 I was so sure I wasn’t going to do it that I did lower body weight training in Eppley. Deadlifts, squats, leg curls, ect. absolutely fried my legs. But later that day I would have a moment that would remind me who I was.

I lost my Garmin running watch earlier that weekend. I had looked everywhere for it and just could not find it. I was ready to buy a new one when I decided to bring some shirts to the dry cleaner. I got to the dry cleaner and dumped the bag with my shirts in it onto the counter. What falls out with my shirts? My watch. I looked at the employee who was on the other side of the counter and said, “I’ve been looking for this for days, I’m an idiot.” Then it hit me. I’m an idiot. I AM AN IDIOT. A little after 9pm that night I committed to the idea of sending the Eppley Marathon and announced it in the club GroupMe.

When I got to the track around 6:45pm on 2/22/22 my hamstrings were already pretty sore from the previous day’s lift. I knew it was not ideal, but I figured it would not be too bad. Rather unceremoniously I just began sending laps around a 0.1-mile track that’s almost as stupid as me. The first 10k went by pretty quick and by this time a healthy crowd of my fellow club runners had rolled in. Having everyone there to support me was massive because after that first 10k things started going downhill FAST. The sharp turns of the track started to take a toll on my legs. The left ankle was getting hit especially hard. Without my fellow club runners support I don’t think I would have pushed though the half marathon point.

I was eventually just grinding out 1 mile at a time then stopping to east some fruit snacks and drink Gatorade. Mile 17 was the first mile where I had to start walking some laps. It was at that point that I decided 26.2 was out of reach. My left leg from foot to lower back was absolutely destroyed. With insane amounts of support from my fellow club runners I made it to the 20-mile point (200 laps) and decided to call it. After I finished, I sat on the track and caught my breath much like I did at Lake Artemisia, the Popeyes parking lot, and in front of 8809 in years prior. Once again, I had pushed myself to my physical limits in the stupidest way possible.

Three hours and 50 minutes of running very tight ovals in some random room – the most pristine stupidity imaginable. I expected to feel some disappointment in not hitting the marathon goal, but I never did. This tradition was never about hitting times or distances. It was about pushing the limits of stupidity farther than anyone ever had on the club. Maybe someday someone will get those extra 62 laps and beat me. But for now, I AM THE SUPIDEST CLUB RUNNER OF ALL TIME.