How Run-Commuting Helps This Colorado Attorney Excel at Ultramarathons – runnersworld.com

Kyle Pietari, 32, can count on one hand the number of times he’s sat down during his 4.7-mile commute to his office in Denver, Colorado, where he has worked as a litigator at an international law firm for about three years. On the rare day he has to bike or take a bus to work, it’s because he’s suffered an injury too great to ignore. Most of the time, he runs the nine-mile round trip from home, to the office, and back.

“I think of my run-commute as transportation first,” Pietari told Runner’s World. “It’s very economical and efficient. Also, it guarantees I’ll get around 50 miles of training in each week. If I wasn’t a run-commuter, there’s no chance I would be able to squeeze in those miles on days that I work late. Even if it’s after midnight when I finish work, I put on my running clothes and run home.”

Pietari’s dedication to run-commute each day—even on early mornings and late nights, through rainstorms and frigid winter weather—translates well to running ultramarathons, which require extreme perseverance as well as mental and physical toughness.

While running the streets of Denver isn’t akin to training on mountain trails, Pietari has made it work for him: Every year since 2016, he has placed in the top ten at Western States, a grueling 100-mile race through California in the heat of the summer. And this June, he’s heading back to Squaw Valley, California, to try to notch a top-ten performance at Western States for the fourth year in a row.

From a Daily Run-Commute to 100-Mile Ultramarathons

In a roundabout way, run-commuting is what inspired Pietari to start training for ultras in the first place. Though he was born and raised outside of New York City, he moved to Texas as a sophomore in high school, where he briefly competed in track and cross country. Once he began college at Rice University, however, he mostly quit the sport. “I ran a few times recreationally in college, but I struggled with motivation,” he said.

After graduating with a degree in Earth Science in 2010, he moved to Duluth, Minnesota, where he accepted a newspaper delivery job in the middle of a bitterly cold January. Despite the temps dipping down to -20°F, he decided to challenge himself by completing his four to seven mile paper route on two feet.

“I had to start as early as 3 a.m. in order to deliver the papers on time each morning,” he said. “There was usually a foot of snow on the ground, so I was running in heavy boots. I didn’t worry about my speed at all. In that job, I built the framework for making running a daily activity for me.”

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By viewing running as a transportation means rather than a chore, Pietari finally had the motivation he needed to keep it up. Soon, he started running for fun, too. In the summer of 2011, he moved to Colorado, where he became enamored with the trail- and ultrarunning community. He loved the fact that in the mountains, maintaining a certain speed wasn’t nearly as important as completing the mileage.

“When you’re on a trail, pace is irrelevant,” he said. “I can go on a three-hour run with people that are much slower than me, and I still get a great workout.”

Instead of taking the traditional route of notching a few marathons in his belt before moving out to ultra marathons, Pietari jumped immediately into the long-distance game, running his first 50K in Moab, Utah, in 2011. The next year, he placed 28th in the Leadville 100 Mile, his debut at the distance. Then in 2013—just before beginning his law degree at Harvard University—he returned to Leadville, where he placed 4th in the race.

Over the next three years, he balanced a rigorous law school schedule with ultramarathon training and racing, raking in several podium finishes including first place at the 2014 Ghost Train Rail Trail 100 and two runner-up finishes at Leadville in 2015 and 2016.

Naturally, a large part of Pietari’s training while he was a student was run-commuting to class. “I structure my life to live within a runnable distance of work, school, or wherever I commute to. Five miles or less is best,” he said.

Blending Training Time With Family Time

Over the past few years, he and his wife, Stacy, who he met back in 2006, had three children at their home in Denver. The addition of the kids, on top of his work duties, has made each hour even more valuable to Pietari; luckily, he’s found ways to combine family time with training time, whether that means pushing his tykes in a stroller on his runs, training on a treadmill in the family room, or hiring a babysitter for the mornings so he and Stacy (who just finished her first 50-miler this year) can run-commute together.

“We have to always be coordinating to make sure we’re getting in our runs while also caring for the kids,” Pietari said. “The most important thing is frequent, sincere communication. One of us will get up earlier than the other to run or watch the kids, and we squeeze in runs whenever we can, whether that’s on a treadmill or run-commuting. On special occasions when we get to run together, we really value that time together.”

Pietari rarely gets injured, despite logging up to 110 miles per week, including back-to-back long runs of 20 miles on Saturday and 25 on Sunday. His robust health might be due to his commitment to recovering between his hard efforts (such as hill workouts on an inclined treadmill): When he’s run-commuting or pushing a stroller, he goes at an easy pace.

“My advice for running with kids in a stroller is to not have any expectations, because you have to stop a lot,” he said. “I try to go at nap time. If they’re awake, it’s good to have snacks and toys on hand.”

While it’s certainly a challenge for Pietari to fit elite-level training into his already jammed schedule, he believes that ultimately, running is the glue that holds him together.

“For me, the best way to unwind is not to sit on the couch and relax in the traditional sense of the word,” he said. “I relax by moving my body. Making my commute rejuvenating, rather than fatiguing, helps me as much mentally as physically.”