St. Croix Running Company

New post on the blog this week — and this one got a little personal.

I've been trying to explain what a 24-hour race actually feels like from the inside, and I kept coming back to something from my childhood: watching tractor pulls with my dad and the way those machines would launch off the line with everything they had, only to have the weight on the sled slowly press them into the dirt.

Endurance runners do the same thing. We start strong, confident, moving well. And then the hours stack up, and the weight moves forward.

FANS is one week out. 80 miles is the goal. Here's how I'm thinking about it.

Every long run has that moment where your brain starts negotiating. The corner up ahead. The top of the hill. Just a minute.

I've started paying attention to whether I'm choosing to walk or needing to walk, and those two things feel pretty different once you learn to tell them apart.

My mantra heading into FANS and the Superior 100: choose to run. It's less about pace and more about staying honest with yourself when it's easier not to be.

New post on the blog this week. Link in the first comment.

There's a stretch in every training block where the goal feels too far away to care about and close enough to make skipping a run feel like a problem. That middle space is what this week's article is about.

I’m 14 weeks from the Superior 100, and I've put the FANS 24-Hour Ultra in June in the middle to keep me honest. 80 miles on a lake loop in Bloomington. My first time on my feet through a full night since Zumbro 2016.

Link in first comment

The 2026 Willow 10 & 20 Miler is done, and what a day it was. Nearly 230 runners, incredible volunteers, perfect weather, and a park that never disappoints.

We’re donating $1,150 back to Willow River State Park to support the trail work that makes it all possible. It’s the least we can do.

Full recap and results links in the first comment. Thank you to everyone who was part of Saturday.

There is a moment on every hard run when comfort gets close enough to feel real.

Last week I was ten miles in and my car was right there. Shower. Food. Rest. All of it waiting, maybe ten minutes away.

I took the turn away from the parking lot anyway.

What I felt in that moment had nothing to do with fitness or mileage. It was quieter than that. And I have been thinking about it ever since — not just as a runner, but as someone who believes the moments nobody else sees are often the ones that matter most.

New post on the blog this week. It is about pride. The quiet kind. The kind you build one decision at a time when no one is watching.

Link in the comments. 🌲

The Willow 10 & 20 Miler is one week away — and if you're registered, this post is for you.

The training is done. This week is about holding steady: keep your runs short and easy, get your gear sorted, eat the foods you know, and don't talk yourself into anything dramatic with seven days to go.

A note from the race director is hitting inboxes before race day with final details you'll want to know. Keep an eye out for it.

Race day doesn't happen without the people who show up to make it work.

We're looking for volunteers for the Willow 10 & 20 Miler on Saturday, May 2nd at Willow River State Park. Registration table, aid station, course marshal, finish line, and sweeping — there's a role for everyone, and every one of them matters.

If you've ever finished a trail race and thought about what it takes to put one on, this is your chance to be on the other side of it. It's an early morning in one of the best parks in western Wisconsin, doing something that genuinely makes a difference for every runner out there.

https://www.stcroixrunningcompany.com/volunteer-willow

Fourteen(ish) days to the Willow 10 & 20 Miler.

If you've had the registration tab open and keep telling yourself you'll decide later — this is the nudge. You don't have to have trained perfectly. You just have to be willing to show up and let the trail do the rest.

And if running isn't the plan, we still need you. Volunteers are what make race day actually work — aid stations, course support, finish line. It's a genuinely good way to spend a Saturday morning in one of the best parks in Wisconsin.

New post on the blog about both. Registration and volunteer info in the comments.

I have been training for the Superior 100. One hundred miles along the Superior Hiking Trail in northeastern Minnesota.

And somewhere out there on the long runs, usually around mile eight, alone in the dark, legs already tired — the question shows up.

Why am I doing this?

Not a crisis. Just a quiet conversation with yourself that you did not ask to have. The kind that only shows up when the effort is real, and the finish is still far away.

I wrote about it this week. About the doubt that comes with big goals. About what it means to keep going anyway. About what we are actually chasing when we push into the hard miles that nobody else sees.

I do not have a clean answer yet. But I think the fact that we keep showing up to ask the question means something.

If you have ever stood at the edge of something hard and wondered why you signed up for it — this one is for you.

Link in the comments.

One of the things people don't expect at Willow is how good it feels to be out there with other people.

Trail races move at a different rhythm. Conversations happen. Strangers become familiar faces by the second loop. The aid station at mile 6.75 feels like a checkpoint between two versions of your run.

Whether this is your first trail race or your fiftieth, you're going to feel that.

27 days to race day. Spots are still open.
🔗 ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=132866