Ultra Running with Kids

Donut Falls in early June.

by Sam

My kids in the middle with my nephews.

Training for an ultra race takes dedication, stamina, grit, and a little bit of crazy but most of all it takes time. Time away from work and family. Every ultra runner struggles with finding time, not enough time and time limits. More often than not runs are based off how much time is available. When there's not enough time we make time. Most of my runs happen in the wee dark hours. I'm either getting home around 1:00 a.m. or starting at 4:00 a.m. Who needs sleep anyway?

In order to make it work I just can't train that much during the day. Work, church and kids require too much time to fit in enough running time. Unless I ran on the road, but who wants to pound the pavement? People think running 100 miles through the mountains is crazy, pfffft, I think running on the hard asphalt is crazy. To each his own. I've had to sacrifice some things in order to fit it all in. Mainly, sleep, but also I came to terms with the fact that I am not going to be as fast as I'd like. I'll finish the race but I just don't have the time to train my body to be faster without a divorce letter or getting fired from my job. And those things aren't worth it.

Summit Jumping in the foothills of Salt Lake.

One of the things I do to keep up on my time is to take my kids with me. All summer long I've taken my kids on trails and up peaks. I have two kids, six and three. The six-year-old was hard to keep up with this year, at least while I'm packing the three-year-old on my back. They both love it. When I pick up the boy from school he often asks if we can go hiking and we often do. He is growing up much differently than I did. He has a really good memory and is very detail oriented.

Here's an example of our conversations:

Me: Let's go up Jack's peak.
Boy: Where is that?
Me: Near Wire.
Boy: How long will it take? Like, Dog-lake-long which is an hour and twenty minutes or Donut-Falls-long, only 20 minutes up.
Me: I don't know because it's new.
Boy: Or is it like Ensign peak long?
Me: We'll see.
Boy: Maybe it will be like Sugarloaf. Or Reynolds...





And on it goes. The last trail I took them on was Church Fork up to Grandeur Peak. The little girl walked an entire 1.5 miles uphill for about an hour and fifteen minutes. When we finally got to the summit we found a group of 11-year-old scouts that were mostly whining and complaining about the hike. They shortly started back down. We took a little break, drank some summit Dew and started down. The boy ran the entire way. It was quite humorous when we passed by the scouts. By the time my boy goes on a scout hike like that he'll be able to point to and name most of the peaks in the surrounding area and have summitted them.

Summit Dew on Grandeur Peak.

About a year ago when my little Bat Girl was learning how to speak she would often say "backpack." Now when we happen to be driving near the mountains she'll say: "are we going hiking?" The two of them have truly enjoyed it. Next year will be a whole new world with little patootie number three on the way. I can't wait to have all three of them on the trail with me. I may not be a fast ultra runner, but I'm making memories with my kids that will last long after I'm dead and gone. I make time to train and I take time to train with my little Doodle-bugs. Win win.

We only get slurpees if we summit or get to our planned destination.