Nathan Schwab took third place in the first race he entered – a 5K about a decade ago.
 
The trophy was enough to hook him on running, a sport he had only taken up because he wanted to stay in shape and enjoy the outdoors. That was enough to make it a hobby – but a little hardware was enough to reward his competitive spirit and make it a passion.
 
Schwab, 35, of Sioux Falls, fell fast into the local running community.
 
“I’ve been addicted to running ever since,” Schwab said. “I like the solidarity of going out and running. It’s calming, and my alone time to go and run and think about things and listen to music.”
 
He mostly listens to indie or alternative music on his shuffle, or runs with a few friends and talks through the miles as a way to center himself from his job as a personal banker for First Bank & Trust and his life with his family – wife, Rachael, and son Brady, 4, and Lily, 2.
 
“You just feel better after a run,” Schwab says.
 
He started out doing a few 5Ks and then signed up for a marathon, but he quickly realized that isn’t his distance. “Anything longer than a half-marathon and I start cramping up,” Schwab said. “A half-marathon and under is my sweet spot.”
 
So when he saw the Newton Hills Trail Runput on by the Sioux Falls Area Running Club with its 6 and 2-mile loops, he signed up.
 
“I instantly fell in love with trail running,” Schwab said. “I remember running through the forest and loving it. It was nirvana.”
 
That was in 2008.
 
Since then, he’s discovered some of the outstanding trails in the area – from the Big Sioux Recreation Area to Good Earth State Park to Great Bear. He was hooked.
 
Now, nine years later, Schwab and Scott Walschlager with the Sioux Falls Area Running Club are expanding that race series, partly because of the drive and passion of Schwab.
I have always wanted to organize a race,” Schwab said. “This is when Good Earth was in its infancy.”
 
The Sioux Falls Area Running Club has run the Newton Hills races for more than a decade, and a few years ago began a regular Thursday night group trail run at Good Earth State Park (as well as loops through Sertoma over the years). It was a natural move for the club, which had been best known for its weekend runs from Lincoln High School and its fall kids cross country series.
 
Trail running was just beginning to take off locally – partly with the growth of Good Earth State Park, the state’s newest park. Dozens of runners began coming to the Thursday runs, many who had never considered themselves trail runners. It was the perfect time for the series to start.
 
“This will be a club-defining activity,” said Schwab, who also runs on the 605 Running Co. racing team. “This will help us bring some light to some other things the club does.”
 
Big Sioux Recreation Area
When: Aug. 26
Distances: 2-mile, 4-mile routes
Features: The races start and finish in the same spot and include a few steep climbs. The park offers disc golf, playgrounds and some paved trails if you want to spend the rest of the day there with your family.
 
 
Good Earth State Park
When: Sept. 16
Distances: 2-mile, 5-mile routes
Features: The courses both are hilly, but the relatively wide trails and lack of super technical running makes them perfect for those newer to trail running. The visitor center should be complete by then and offer amenities and an interpretive center for families.
 
Newton Hills State Park
When: Oct. 14
Distances: 2-mile, 10K routes
Features: The most technical of the three races, Newton Hills is a lot of single track with roots and rocks. The 2-mile course has one big hill. The races start and finish near a small pavilion in a clearing. The park has playgrounds, but not near the race course.
 
Other notes:

• Registration will be through UltraSignUp: Big Sioux Rec - Good Earth - Newton Hills
• Check the running club Facebook page or stop into 605 Running Company for news about registration
• State parking passes will be needed. You can buy one and get one half off. Link here.
• First through third place winners and age group winners will get gift cards to 605 Running Company
• The SFARC group trail runs will begin again in the spring.

​See you out there!

​Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear each Tuesday. You can follow her on Twitter @runnerJPK or reach her at [email protected]. Story ideas are encouraged.
 

$5 Gift Certificate
Thanks for reading! Enjoy this gift to 605 Running Company. 
Expires: 3/5/2017 one per customer, must present certificate at checkout 

​“Mom, let’s go for a bike ride.”
 
That was my son Jack, 8, this weekend, when the weather lifted for a while, the wind died down and we all breathed a sort of sigh of relief in the sun.
 
Live in South Dakota long enough, and you take the first nice day after the new year and run with it. Or bike, hike, dog-walk or anything with it. Sit on the back deck with a glass of wine or book or boyfriend or something with it.
 
Whatever you love to do, you do it.
 
For Jack, that’s riding his bike. There are two seasons in our house: Nintendo DS and biking. Like all of us, he saw his window and wanted to take it.
 
“You got it, buddy,” I said. “Go get your helmet.”
 
I thought for a minute about riding my own bike. We tool around the neighborhood together a fair amount, and he’s joined me on bike rides with Falls Area Bicyclists, where veteran cyclists circle around him and keep him from darting into the street.
 
But instead, I put on my running shoes. Grabbed a hydration pack and threw in a phone and a snack. I didn’t need water for the run, but I worried if we went too far he’d be tired and we’d need to call for a ride. The farthest he’s ridden was 9 miles, on that same FAB ride.
 
Jack is an awesome kid. He has a few issues, like a lot of kids, and we work through them. All that makes me grateful to be his mom and friend and to put on my running shoes and say yes, let’s go, together, down to the bike path.
 
Saturday was no different.
 
“Tie your shoes, buddy,” I said, looking at the long and frayed laces.
 
“I did, mom,” he said, and we both knew he hadn’t.
 
Still, we set out.
 
“Wait for me at the corners, OK,” I told him, as we made our way through our Sioux Falls neighborhood, down the gentle hill to the bike path just under a mile away.
 
There have been some changes in my life. Jack and his sister Viv, 6, seem to be weathering those changes as best they can. That’s part of why I said yes to him. No matter what else I had to do, when he asked I wanted to be able to say yes to the time, yes to being outside, yes to letting him set the pace and tone for our day, to give him whatever he needed, even if he wasn’t sure what emotion he was meeting by riding his bike with his mom.
 
We got to a stoplight, pushed the button and waited together. “Let’s go,” I said, as the light changed. “Turn right when you get on the bike path.
 
The road curves, then a gentle downhill. He waited for me near the entrance to the park. “You can go down the hill, just wait for me under the bridge,” I told him.
 
He did.
 
“Why don’t you run faster, mom,” Jack asked.
 
“I’m doing the best I can, buddy,” I said, as my watch ticked off the miles. “Let’s run to Cherry Rock and play for a bit and then we’ll head back.”
 
That’s what we did, and I was reminded of the many miles I spent pushing him,  and then Viv, in a jogging stroller, with much the same commentary. “Mom, are you walking?”
 
I never was.
 
OK, sometimes I was, but never when they asked.
 
But here’s the thing: This is normal to them. Mom has her running shoes on. We have bikes. And a history of jogging strollers and a Burley and a handful of other items that have helped combine parenting and a desire to not let yourself go entirely to pot.
 
And here I was, in some kind of parenting nirvana. I’m on a run. My son is on a bike. I’m not worried he’ll ride into the street or the river or drop some beloved blanket and cry for three entire miles about it while strangers stare at me like I’m the worst mom on the planet (or as I like to call it, the Trick or Treat Trail Run of 2011).
 
(Another aside: That’s how you learn the lesson to not throw things out of the stroller.)
 
(Wait, one more, thanks again to that guy who came up to me after the race with the blanket.)
 
Where was I?
 
Yes, a half hour into our run. At Cherry Rock. Where we talked about monkey bars and why the bathrooms aren’t open and how you can’t just pee on a tree in the middle of the day, even though, yes, technically I have let you do that before. But not today, OK, buddy?
 
About the teenagers on skateboards.
 
The families.
 
Everybody out there, the best highway in Sioux Falls, full of people who just like to be outside. Friends running together. Kids wobbling on bikes they got for Christmas and have been dying to practice on. The runners who realize that their spring races are coming sooner than they thought, and they better try to get a few miles in this weekend before the weather turns again, which it will, of course, because this is South Dakota in February.
 
All of that was true.
 
But this was true, too: Jack and me. Six miles. A haul back up the hill home. Two cyclists telling him he was doing great. Me giving him the miles as they tick off, watching as he realizes how far he’s gone, not really knowing how far a mile is, but being excited anyway.
 
Jack standing by his bike under a bridge as I come by.
 
“Thanks for waiting, buddy, I appreciate it. You’re doing great,” I say as he steps on a pedal and pushes himself forward.
 
“You, too, mom,” he says.
 
And right there is all I need. This sun and son and sum of all that we are: A moment outside, present, together, and grateful for it, for all our sins to fall away, all our quirks to disappear, for us to be just who we are where we are and when we are. And we were.
 
Happy running.
​

Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear each Tuesday. You can follow her on Twitter @runnerJPK or reach her at [email protected]. Story ideas are encouraged.
​

Professional distance runner Shalane Flanagan calls her weekend miles the church of the long run.
 
I think Barry and Kristina Hein call it marriage.
 
If you run in Sioux Falls, you’ve probably seen the Heins. They’re tall. Thin. Blond. Trailing four kids behind them who look just like them, willowy and kind. You’ve seen Kristina pushing kids in a jogger. Or seen Barry running from their house in central Sioux Falls to his job at Sanford Health. Or all the kids at the pool or church or anywhere wholesome families hang out.
 
They’re wonderful.
 
They’re also fast and funny and two of the kindest people I’ve ever met. So when I thought about how this post would fall on Feb. 14, I thought about the Heins. What’s it like to run with the person you love?
 
To find out, I spent a lunch hour with them at the hospital, where Barry, 42, works. Kristina, 41, came with takeout sandwiches for the department and two of the most well-behaved kids I’ve seen in tow. We sat in an empty patient room and they told me about how they got started.
 
Kristina, who is from Gothenburg, Sweden, grew up cross-country skiing. As part of that training, she had to run. So she did. Barry, who grew up in Sioux Falls, was a swimmer.
 
“I ran once with her in college,” Barry said.
 
“He would start out sprinting and then after a quarter mile he was done,” Kristina said.
 
(Here’s something you’ll discover: Their dialogue is the best part of talking with them. I just want to hang out and listen to them talk to each other.)
 
This is how Barry got started: He began biking to work. Then he signed up for a sprint triathlon in Chamberlain, with a goal to not walk the 5K. At the time, he was barely running. It was 2006.
 
“Let’s put it this way,” Kristina said. “He had a hard time keeping up when I had two kids in a double stroller I was pushing.”
 
Barry persevered. He signed up for a half-Ironman, trained a bit, liked it.
“Then I decided I was going to do an Ironman and realized I would have to train for that,” Barry said.
 
To get ready, he signed up for the Mickelson Trail marathon. He thought if he could complete that, he would be able to do the Ironman. Through it all, he mostly ran alone. “I don’t know that I ever did a 20-mile run,” Barry said.
 
And this sums up why I love the Heins:
 
“My first marathon I ran a 3:29 and thought I was going to die,” Barry says. “I bought running shoes, and I thought I didn’t want a lot of weight, so I sized down, just like every runner should do. My foot hurt so bad, I’m sure I had some kind of tendonitis, my knee hurt … .” He trails off, laughing, about the rookie mistake.
 
Kristina grew up running, cross-country skiing and sailing. When she and Barry lived in Rochester, Minn., she helped coach a cross-country ski team, and one of the other coaches worked with high school runners. So she helped with that, and then she began to meet more runners.
 
“The first marathon I trained for was Grandma’s,” Kristina says. “I was just coming off this 56-mile ski race, so I figured I could do it.”
 
The Friday before the race, she found out she was pregnant, but her doctor gave her the go-ahead to run anyway. She did.
 
By this time, the Heins realized they may actually be turning into runners. Barry looked around and found the Sioux Falls Area Running Club online and saw the Saturday morning runs from Lincoln High School. That isn’t far from where they live, so he went down one morning to give it a try. He loved it.
 
“Then he told me, and thought I should go,” Kristina said.
 
So this is what you’ll see on a Saturday morning: Barry runs in the dark toward Lincoln. He’s sinewy, gentle, always smiles. Kristina comes next, with her blonde, blonde hair and accent and always just a few minutes late. But you never mind, because when she gets there, it was worth the wait. And when they start talking to you, you’re just happy to be there, because they’re genuine, and they care, and they want to know about your upcoming race or your kids or your family or the sweet deal you got on some new winter mittens. They’re unassuming and easygoing.
 
But they aren’t saccharine.
 
“When Barry was training for his first triathlon, then we got to the point where it’s hard to run together with him,” Kristina says. “Just a few weeks ago, I was thinking one of the things I dislike the most about my husband is that he always makes me feel like I am out of shape.”
 
Barry laughs.
 
“It’s a little payback for the Grand Canyon (where they did a rim-to-rim-to-rim run a few years ago),” Barry says. “Everybody wanted to push her off a cliff because everyone was miserable except her. She’s all happy at mile 40-whatever, and I was like, get away from me.”
 
“Barry just told them it was OK to tell me to shut up,” Kristina says.
 
“Because of how well she felt,” he laughs.
 
“It would be nice to marry someone who isn’t so athletic,” Kristina says. “I get my payback when I cross-country ski.”
 
They joke about the times they have run together and argued over slowing down to stay together. Talk about how when they travel to Norway, where the run is half actual running and half hiking, they stick together more, enjoy the time. Beyond that, they just both show up to the group runs and then go their separate ways.
 
But the trick isn’t to do it together. It’s to make room for each of them to do something they love.
 
“The biggest thing for us is that both of us are happy to let the other person run,” Kristina says. “I think that’s where a lot of people run into trouble – where you don’t have someone who understands what it is.”
 
It helps that they do most of their runs before the sun comes up, then come home to a house that’s still asleep. They make time not only for their miles but also their family – ready to dedicate themselves to the business of raising children and going to work and helping at church and all the daily things you do. All the things that are easier to do once you’ve cleared your head step by step through town with friends, on dirt trails and bike paths.
 
Next up is the possibility of a 100-miler in the Black Hills this spring. Kristina won the 50-miler last year, and Barry worries what the competition would be if she were in the 100-mile race with him. For most of us, that would look like a bunch of insecurity and panic.
 
Not for the Heins. For them, it looks like what it always does: A glorious bit of dialogue that makes you just want to live their lives with them.
 
Barry: I would be worried she would beat me.
Kristina: My only chance would be if I came on at the end.
Barry: And that’s likely. Very likely.
Kristina: He doesn’t like the fact that I’m so happy.
Barry: And just beating me. I wouldn’t like that either. While you’re happy.
 
Here’s the thing; They both have the raw talent. The drive. The easy, loping way of running that makes it all seem so effortless. And despite Barry’s teasing, they both also have the right attitude. Work hard. Train. Look around you and admire the people and places you see. Make room for what you love and who you love and what they love.
 
And then the rest of it sort of works itself out.

​

I own a treadmill.
 
I bought it when I was pregnant with my son, who is 8 years old now. I bought it knowing that with a new baby in the house, it might not always be easy to get out and run – that sometimes the miles would have to tick off while he was sleeping or resting in his baby swing.
 
And that happened – not with as much regularity as I thought it would, but enough to justify keeping it around. Besides, it was in the basement, so it wasn’t in the way. It never turned into a platform to store old holiday decorations, but it also just hasn’t been used that much.
 
When I first started running, it wasn’t unusual for me to log many miles on the treadmill at the gym. I was completely broke, and I kept a gym membership – extravagant as it was at the time – because I considered it my social time. So instead of spending that money on drinks out after work, I would dutifully take my gym bag and go take the yoga classes or weights classes or run on the treadmill.
 
After a while, I began running outside more, and then I just never really looked back. My gym membership paid for me to have somewhere to take a shower after a run from downtown. I used the elliptical more, and then only if I was so injured nothing else would do. Tried the rowing machine here and there, but I’m just not that coordinated. And I taught spin classes every Monday at noon for many years.
 
Still, the true love is outside running.
 
So as I’ve watched my life unfold in the past year, I’ve realized that sometimes I change it, and sometimes it changes me. I’m divorced. Newly. I have shared custody. Happily. I’m signed up for a 50-mile race in April. Fearfully. And that means my habits have to change, my need to log miles tempered by circumstance.
 
Which brings me back to the treadmill.
 
It’s still in the basement. I angled it today so I could watch TV on it if I want to, something I’ve never done because I have fairly bad vision and it upsets my balance to try to focus on anything moving while on a treadmill. But maybe this way it will work and make it less boring.
 
I’ve considered moving it upstairs, to a room with a window, so I don’t feel so isolated. And I’ve thought about putting it in the garage, opening the double door and running while I watch the dog walkers and other runners file by in the early morning. It’s still an option.
 
For now, though, I think it’s level, and I can see the television from it, and the kids haven’t been bothered by the noise of it early in the morning or late at night. I updated my playlists on my ancient ipod. I’ve thought about wireless headphones for the television, if I can get past the dizziness. And mostly, I’ve been grateful that the treadmill is even an option.
 
Treadmill running is not running to me. It’s exercise. It’s a slog staring at the console, wondering how on earth it can seem so awful and endless, this running in place. I play with the incline, the pace, toggle back and forth between time elapsed and distance, try to do the math in my head and guess when I’ll hit 6 miles and be able to be done.
 
When I know I’m meeting friends to run, or even going by myself in the early morning light, it isn’t difficult for me to get up and go, and I’ll run for as long as my schedule allows, grabbing as many miles as I can, and reveling in the outdoors. That’s the true love for me, every time. It’s why I love trail running. It’s why I want every window in the house open from March through October. I just need it.
 
But the treadmill is something. It’s still miles. Maybe I’ll use it to embrace speedwork. Or watch every season of “30 Rock” on Netflix. Again. Maybe I can use the steady cadence, the rhythmic sound of my feet on the belt as a kind of meditation in the morning, a sort of sensory deprivation tank of a run – no music, no television, no conversation with friends, nothing to look at. Just me. My thoughts. My feet. My pounding heart. And my head – clearer and clearer.
 
Anything is possible, right?

Running Happy Hour!
Monday - Friday use this coupon to take $10 OFF any purchase when you shop 7am - 10am
Expires: 2/17/2017