My path to ultrarunning has taught me an important lesson—we’re all stronger and more capable than we often realize. Things can seem overwhelming right now, but as every ultrarunner has heard before, “Just put one foot in front of the other.”

In lieu of racing Western States this year due to its cancellation, I’ve renewed my general commitments and made my own backyard running goals. If I follow through, I think the payoffs will be much greater than finishing any race. I hope the following list inspires you to make your own set of goals.

When the pandemic erased the motivator of ultras from our calendars, we had to reconnect with deeper reasons why we run long. Personally, I desperately needed to re-establish and fortify my bread-and-butter weekly running routine for reasons that have little to do with preparing for ultras.

Mount Shasta Trail Runs, to be held on June 20, appears to be the first sanctioned race of any kind to take place in California since the Pioneer Spirit 50 Miler went off on March 14, just five days prior to Governor Gavin Newsom’s statewide stay-at-home order to help combat the spread of the coronavirus.

In these crazy times it’s important to just do you—whether that’s running 5ks on the roads or 50-milers in the mountains. I’m a long way away from being in ultramarathon endurance shape. But that’s okay because I’m enjoying what I’m doing, and you should be too.

If you’ve never thanked the race director of an event that touched you as a runner, send them a note, because right now we could really use your patience and support.

We had just heard about this really cool challenge inspired by David Goggins, where people run 4 miles every 4 hours, for 48 hours. We quickly came up with our own variation that included a 100-mile twist: we would run 4 miles every 4 hours, until we hit 100 miles.

Like several runners in the trail running community, I decided that this was the perfect time to go after an FKT. I settled on the Shawnee State Forest Backpack Loop, a 38-mile trail loop in southern Ohio that has over 8,000 ft of vert – enough elevation that Shawnee State Forest is known as Ohio’s “Little Smokies.”

It’s not often that you find a dehydrated and perhaps, still hallucinating ultrarunner who just spent a full day running 100 miles rushing off to clean up in order to get back to the finish line and cheer on other racers. Arguably even less frequently, do you find the outright winner of a 100-miler hustling to get his camera to snap shots of runners coming through the final chute of glory as the “golden hour” of the race approaches.

Ultrarunner Jared Campbell started the Running Up for Air timed event at Grandeur Peak (Outside of Salt Lake City) to raise awareness and money to fight air pollution in his hometown region. He saw and felt the effects of the winter inversion layer firsthand on daily training runs up Grandeur Peak.