Hey! Here’s a thing I did on December 12, 2020: running every street in the Bloomsburg (Pennsylvania) town limits. For the itinerary, click here:
https://paulloomis.com/every-street-in-bloomsburg
Now, back to the regular page:
In 1984 I was a freshman in high school, recently moved to a small town in northern Indiana. In Indianapolis, I had played soccer since age 7, but no one in Greentown played soccer. So I went out for cross country. I did that (and track) for 4 years, getting better but never great. When I graduated I had bests of 17:27 for 5K cross country and 10:54 for the 3200 on the track.
In 1988 I headed off to Wabash College. Nobody told me that it was mostly people who had done well in high school who ran college cross country, so I went out for the team. For much of the first season, I was rarely in sight of the rest of the team at the end of a run. But I got better, and I even made it into the top seven for a little while. I left with bests of 26:30 for 5-mile cross country and 34:44 for the 10,000 on the track.
In 1995, I ran my first marathon (Columbus) to qualify for the 100th Boston Marathon. Over the next three years, I ran 9 marathons (including Boston three times) and 4 ultramarathons, the longest the Ice Age Trail 50-miler. My bests were 1:21:41 in the half marathon and 3:04:47 in the marathon. Yes, I would have liked to run sub-3. I didn’t.
Then life happened. I finished grad school. I got a job. I got married. We bought an old house and did lots of work on it. I did some bad things to my back. We had kids. I got tenure. I didn’t run much at all. For a few years, I often biked the 9 hilly miles to and from work. Then I got hit by a car and broke two vertebrae.
Somehow, a year later, I started running again. I mowed a hilly 0.55 mile loop in our back field and ran that over and over. I worked hard on making my form better so my back wouldn’t hurt. I often ran barefoot or in minimal shoes – Saucony Kilkenny cross country racing flats were (and are) my favorites. Our kids Anna and Zeke started running the Market Street Mile and other races.
In 2013 I organized and completed the Woolman Walk, a 215-mile journey from Mount Holly, NJ to Wyalusing, PA, to commemorate the 1763 journey of John Woolman to visit the Native American settlement there. We covered 215 miles in two weeks. It is interesting to me that after all the marathons and ultras, the highest mileage week I’ve ever had – 117 miles – came this way, walking rather than running.
In 2015 I ran the Worlds End 50K and the Tussey Mountainback 50-mile, both in Pennsylvania. In 2019 I went farther, 100K at the Pine Creek Challenge. I’ve started running marathons again. Sometime during our 2016-17 sabbatical in Bolivia and Peru, I got the idea that I could finally break three hours in the marathon. The first three I’ve run have all been unseasonably warm. The fastest I’ve run was a 3:13:56 at the Two Rivers Marathon in March 2019.
A year later, I was signed up for Two Rivers again, but it was cancelled due to COVID-19. So I ran a marathon solo, on the local high school track, in 3:10:03. A year after that, I was back at Two Rivers, and almost beat my 1996 PR, running a 3:05:15. (With, for the first time ever, negative splits!) I’ll keep trying.
Pandemic days. Races are cancelled. What should we do? Well, on December 12, 2020, I ran Every Street in Bloomsburg (PA), the place I’ve called home since 1999. It covered 69.1 miles (about 13 miles of that repeated streets) and took me 13 hours and 13 minutes.
I keep track of lots of things. Here are some:
races I’ve run many times:
- Greentown Glass Festival 5-mile: 1985-92, 94-96, 98 (12 times)
- Wabash College Alumni Meet: 1988-98 (11 times)
- Shoals Catfish Festival 5K: 1986, 88-91, 93-96, 98, 2010 (11 times)
- Market Street Mile: 2009, 10, 12-15, 17, 18 (8 times)
- Indianapolis Mini-Marathon: 1988-90, 92, 94-96, 99 (8 times)
- Run for the Diamonds: 2012, 14, 15, 17-20, 22 (8 times)
- Run for the Cookies: 2000, 01, 14, 19-23 (8 times)
- Sick Trail Run: 2011, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21 (7 times)
- Purdue Co-Rec 8K: 1992, 93, 95-98 (6 times)
- Prophetstown Run: 1990, 93, 96-98 (5 times)
- Danville Heritage Festival 5K: 2013, 15, 17, 19, 21 (5 times)
- St. Columba Leprechaun Loop 5K: 2015, 16, 18, 20, 22 (5 times)
- Worlds End Ultramarathon (50K): 2015, 16, 18, 19, 22 (5 times)
recent favorites:
- Sick Trail Run, at the Sick Farm, north of Millville, July
- Run for the Diamonds, Thanksgiving morning in Berwick
- Worlds End Ultramarathon (50K), early June at Worlds End State Park
- Tussey Mountainback 50 mile relay (or solo), over in Boalsburg, mid-October
- Susquehanna Warrior Trail, Shickshinny, April
- Chris Shultz Memorial 5K, Millville, late June
- Crystal Lake Trail Races, north of Hughesville, late August
overall wins (this happens from time to time, all depending on who doesn’t show up…):
- 1986: Camp Epworth 1 and 2 mile
- 1995: Brookston Apple-Popcorn Festival 10K
- 1996: Brookston Apple-Popcorn Festival 10K
- 1997: Brookston Apple-Popcorn Festival 10K
- 1998: Prophetstown Run 5 mile
- 1998: Air Force ROTC 5K
- 2011: Robbins Run 5K
- 2013: CCHS Run for the Bulls 5K
- 2014: Robbins Run 10K
- 2015: Chris Shultz Memorial 5K
- 2016: Chris Shultz Memorial 5K
- 2016: Montour Preserve Spring Fever Trail 30K
- 2017: Chris Shultz Memorial 5K
- 2018: Humdinger Plus Trail Race (13.8 mi)
- 2018: Laps for Lexi 5K
- 2018: Great Pumpkin Run 5K
- 2019: Turbotville Elementary Spring 5K
- 2019: Pine Creek Challenge 100K
- 2019: Danville Area Community Center 5K
- 2020: Crystal Lake Trail Race (15 miler)
- 2021: Virtual Run for the Cookies 10K
- 2021: Crystal Lake Trail Race (5K)
- 2021: Island Park 150 (150 minutes; I went 21.42 miles)
- 2022: Crystal Lake Trail Race (5K)
- 2022: First Alarm 5K
- 2022: Sheshequin Half Marathon
- 2022: Danville Area Community Center 5K
- 2022: Island Park 150 (150 minutes: I went 21.42 miles again, a little faster)
(How does this keep happening? I’m getting older, and slower. I shouldn’t be winning races!)
overall last place (I put this here for anyone who has ever finished last in a race):
- 1984: Sectional cross country meet (67th of 67)
- 1989: Wabash Invitational meet 10000m (7th of 7)
- 1989: Rose-Hulman dual meet 10000m (5th of 5)
- 1989: Little State meet 10000m (16th of 16)
- 1989: Illinois Wesleyan Invitational 10000m (9th of 9)
- 1990: Wabash Polar Bear meet 10000m (5th of 5)
- 2020: COVID-19 Solo Track Marathon (1st of 1)
marathons:
-
- Boston: 1996, 1997, 1998, 2022
- Kentucky: 1996, 1997
- Columbus: 1995, 1998
- Houston: 1998, 1999
- Abebe Bikila (DC): 2017
- Garden Spot Village (PA): 2018
- Steamtown (PA): 2018
- Two Rivers (PA): 2019, 2021
- COVID-19 Solo Track Marathon (PA): 2020
- Taskinas Creek (VA): 2021
ultramarathons:
- Every Street in Bloomsburg (Pennsylvania), 69.1 miles: 2020
- Pine Creek Challenge 100K, Pennsylvania: 2019
- Keystone Backyard Ultra, Pennsylvania (I did 58.33 miles): 2021
- Tussey Mountainback 50 mile, Pennsylvania: 2015, 2020
- Ice Age Trail 50 mile, Wisconsin: 1996
- Howl at the Moon 8 hour run (I did 44.23 miles), Illinois: 1997
- Worlds End 50K, Pennsylvania: 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022
- Bigfoot 50K, Ohio: 2022
- KTA Susquehanna Ultra Run 50K, Pennsylvania: 2015
- Huntington Ultra Frigid Fifty 50K, Indiana: 1998
- Lairig Ghru Race, 28 miles, Scotland: 1997
Personal Records
| Distance | Time | Event | Date | Pace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 400m | :59.8 | U. of Chicago 4×400 relay | 1991.02.09 | 4:00.6 |
| 800m | 2:17 | EHS track meet | 1987.05.?? | 4:25.5 |
| 1600m | 4:52 | Wabash time trial | 1992.05.04 | 4:53.7 |
| 2 miles (unofficial) | 10:17 | Danville Invitational split | 1990.09.29 | 5:08.5 |
| 5K | 16:34 | Rose-Hulman dual meet | 1992.03.31 | 5:19.9 |
| 4 miles (unofficial) | 21:17 | GLCA meet split | 1990.09.15 | 5:19.3 |
| 5 miles | 26:30 | GLCA meet | 1990.09.15 | 5:18.0 |
| 10K | 34:44 | ICAC meet | 1992.04.25 | 5:35.4 |
| 9 miles | 56:17 | Berwick Run for the Diamonds | 2019.11.29 | 6:15.2 |
| half-marathon | 1:21:41 | Indpls/Lawrence Half-Marathon | 1998.10.10 | 6:13.9 |
| marathon | 3:04:47 | Kentucky Marathon | 1996.12.07 | 7:02.9 |
| 50K | 4:37:51 | HUFF 50K (32.4mi adjusted) | 1998.12.27 | 8:56.6 |
| 50K (unofficial) | 4:36:11 | Tussey Mountainback split | 2020.10.11 | 8:53.4 |
| 50 miles | 7:57:05 | Tussey Mountainback | 2020.10.11 | 9:32.5 |
| 50 miles (unofficial) | 7:38:13 | Pine Creek Challenge split | 2019.09.07 | 9:10.0 |
| 100K | 9:37:03 | Pine Creek Challenge | 2019.09.07 | 9:17.2 |
Yearly Mileage
| Year | Miles | Year | Miles | Year | Miles | Year | Miles | Year | Miles | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | 300 | 1994 | 688 | 2004 | 0 | 2014 | 862 | 2024 | |||||
| 1985 | 700 | 1995 | 1026 | 2005 | 0 | 2015 | 1514 | ||||||
| 1986 | 830 | 1996 | 1483 | 2006 | 28 | 2016 | 1021 | ||||||
| 1987 | 1000 | 1997 | 1377 | 2007 | 25 | 2017 | 1248 | ||||||
| 1988 | 1270 | 1998 | 1530 | 2008 | 3 | 2018 | 2042 | ||||||
| 1989 | 2003 | 1999 | 605 | 2009 | 40 | 2019 | 2202 | ||||||
| 1990 | 2423 | 2000 | 725 | 2010 | 233 | 2020 | 2691 | ||||||
| 1991 | 1914 | 2001 | 264 | 2011 | 367 | 2021 | 2061 | ||||||
| 1992 | 1429 | 2002 | 0 | 2012 | 279 | 2022 | 2042 | ||||||
| 1993 | 975 | 2003 | 0 | 2013 | 443 | 2023 | total | 37,643 |
Paul Loomis 