Flip-flops and short shorts: Trail runners are a different breed

Runners are a strange breed. We do something for fun that much of the rest of the planet considers punishment.

I got the chance to soak up a different brand of funky when my friends and I attended the Sunderbruch B&B 10k-ish  race (a part of the No Coast Trail Series) on May 21. So many hippies, and man-buns galore. Old folks, little kids, in-betweeners like us, tons of fantastic running tattoos, and more dudes wearing short shorts than I’ve ever seen in my life. No joke, the dude running in front of me was wearing flip-flops. 

These people were not the typical folks I’m used to running with. There were few hydration systems and even fewer people fumbling with GPS devices and earphones. This crowd was there for the simple joy of running hard on a beautiful course. It was refreshing. It felt like how I imagine running was in the ’70s or ’80s, before technology took over and runners ran to get after it, not to share their accomplishments on social media. I felt like a jerk turning my running app on. But I was on a trail in a city foreign to me, so I figured I had better be safe than sorry.

It was a tough race with lots of steep inclines and sharp descents. It was also a beautiful course with wonderful, hilarious volunteers blasting Biggie and shouting encouraging – sometimes perfectly off-color – remarks to participants. I never left a volunteer encounter without a smile on my face, even when my dreaded side stitch started to kick my mental ass. The participants were incredible, too. Everyone I encountered was so supportive, whether they were passing me or I was passing them (the latter happened FAR less frequently :-)).

If you are in Iowa and get a chance to run a No Coast Trail Series race like the Sunderbruch B&B, I highly recommend it. For being a trail newb, and even after hearing the course was fairly difficult, I was eager to do it again before I even hit the finish line. You’ll never meet a more eclectic group than Iowa trail runners. They’re a different breed, but they’ll treat you like family.