In the interest of saving time, I almost always run from home. But at this point I’ve been up the hill, down the hill, to the east, to the west, around my favorite loop, past the school, through the park trail, just . . . everywhere. Dozens of times.

My brain is bored, my body is bored, and I can feel aches and pains increasing, probably because I’m running similar distances on similar terrain repeatedly. I sense a deep need to shake things up.

Perhaps you, like me, could do with a little change of pace? Here is some of what I’d like to try.

Meet a Friend

It’s harder to be bored with a buddy. When the conversation is flowing, it matters less if you’ve already run the current route countless times before. And, bonus, your friend very likely has some routes in their back pocket that aren’t part of your usual repertoire.

Plus, you’ll likely shake up your pace a bit—your pal might go a bit faster or slower than you do, or prefer a different distance. This is great: It mixes things up for your over-it brain and your bored/sore muscles, provides catch-up time with a friend, and makes your run something to enjoy rather than slog through.

Try a Running Club

Like running with a friend—a lot of friends. A running club gives you a whole pool of people who all enjoy the same activity you do. Plus joining a club takes away some of the mental work, telling you what routes to run and when. Anything that brings new people and places into your life is a win.

Sign Up for a New Race or a New Distance

Always do the same annual 10K, Turkey Trot, or marathon? Make things interesting by registering for something new. Committed to half marathons? Sign up for a 5K or mile race.

Regularly do 10Ks? How about a sprint triathlon or a marathon relay? Need an adventure? Try a long-distance relay or an ultra trail race.

You might discover you’re really good—or really bad, which is exciting in its own way—at something you’ve never before considered.

Look for a New Route

Take one day a week and commit to driving to a new starting point: a trail run at Riverside State Park, a circuit that takes you around a series of neighborhood parks on the other side of town, or a hilly off-road adventure up Mica Peak.

Your mind will appreciate the new location, and your body will be grateful for any variation in terrain.

Take Some Time Off

Just because you’re a runner doesn’t mean you can’t ever take a break. If you’re sick of running, you don’t have to force it. Rest.

Do something else you love—hike, bike, swim, play some disc golf. Sign up for a yoga class, or a climbing package at Wild Walls or Bloc Yard. Focus on strength training. (See “Become a Better Runner with Yoga” and “Five Beginner Yoga Poses for Runners.”)

Or just dial your mileage way, way down to maybe one or two days of running each week (depending on what is your normal). Any new activities you attempt during this time—SUPping, or martial arts, or spinning, or tap dancing—are providing something for you through their very different-ness.

Originally published as “Running Rut Remedy” in the September-October 2021 issue.

Photos: (top left) Running at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge. (top left) // Jon Jonckers; Running Club (top right); Spokane’s High Drive Bluff (bottom left); Mica Peak trails. // Holly Weiler; Spokane running clubs (bottom right).

To learn about Northwest running clubs, visit the OTO archives.

Find more Run Wild columns here.

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RUNNING CLUBS

Trail Maniacs: For trail runners as well as mountain bikers and hikers, this group hosts races and other events.

SoHi Running Club: This informal group meets Mondays year-round—rain or shine, and also on holidays—at Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant at 6 p.m. on Spokane’s South Hill.

Fleet Feet Running Club: Weekly group runs and a No Boundaries 5k Training Program are offered through Spokane and Spokane Valley Fleet Feet store locations. Schedule includes Monday trail runs, Tuesday strength training workouts and drills, Wednesday speed workouts, and Saturday long, slow distance runs.

Spokane Valley Running Club: Also referred to as the Spokane Valley Bison Running Club, group meets at 5:50 p.m. at Monkey Bar, in Spokane Valley. Runs begin at 6 p.m.

Bloomsday Road Runners Club (meets Tuesdays & Saturdays): Group runs start at 8 a.m. on Saturday mornings at Kendall Yards from the parking lot by Central Food. On Tuesday evenings speedwork is done at the Spokane Community College track; warmup begins at 6 p.m. Club’s website is the go-to resource for local running news and includes an event calendar of regional races and local club runs.

Palouse Road Runners: This Moscow, Idaho-based group has coached workouts at the University of Idaho track at 6 p.m on Tuesdays.

Flightless Birds Running Club: Cheney-based group meets at 5:45 p.m. on Tuesdays at Barrelhouse Pub & Pizza; run begins at 6.

Lantern Run Club: Meets weekly at 6 p.m. on Tuesdays in Spokane’s Perry District at Lantern Tap House.

The Monterey Café Running Club: Meets at 6 p.m. on Tuesdays during Daylight Savings time from March to November at Monterey Café in downtown Spokane (group formerly known as c:nextIT/run).

Spokane Swifts: A women’s running club that primarily focuses on training goals and competitive racing. Group practices take place year-round on Tuesdays at 5:45 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. The Lilac Bloomsday 12K is the team’s annual race.

Palouse Falls Beer Chasers: Group meets weekly on Wednesdays at Birch & Barley Restaurant in Pullman at 5:30 p.m.

High Drive Highlanders: Meets at Rocket Market on Spokane’s South Hill at 6 p.m. on Wednesdays for weekly 5K group runs.

Green Bluff Running Club: Meets weekly on Wednesdays in Mead at Big Barn Brewery at 6 p.m. for group runs or walks.

Iron Goat Running Club: Meets weekly on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. at Iron Goat Tap Room in downtown Spokane.

Flying Irish Running Club: Runners and walkers meet weekly on Thursdays at 5:45 p.m. at Chateau Rive near the Spokane Arena.

Liberty Lake Running Club: Weekly 3-mile run/walk begins at 6:30 p.m. on Thursdays at Liberty Lake Physical Therapy.

Millwood Milers: Group meets weekly at 6 p.m. on Thursdays at Millwood Brewing Company in the community of Millwood east of Spokane.

Spokane Moms Run This Town/She Runs This Town: The Spokane chapter of this national organization meets on Fridays, year-round, at 9:30 a.m. at the Manito Park duck pond for 3-5 mile runs. According to local chapter leader Noelle Lovoi, the group occasionally meets at Kendall Yards, and runners should request to join the private Facebook group to learn more. Runs are open to all fitness abilities, interest levels, and run paces.

Nike+ Run Club: These weekly Friday morning runs meet at 6 a.m. in front of the Nike store in downtown Spokane.

Manito Running Club: Meets at Manito Park on Saturdays at 8 a.m. in the 18th and Grand parking lot.

Manito Night Shift: Work a non-traditional schedule? This informal group was created for Spokane-area runners to connect and plan group runs anytime, day or night. Join the group’s Facebook page to learn the schedule.

Beers & Blisters Running Group: Meets on Sundays at 9 a.m. at My Fresh Basket in Kendall Yards.

Sunday Slugs: Meets weekly at 8 a.m. at Manito Park on Spokane’s South Hill in the 18th and Grand parking lot for scenic walks or runs starting from the duck pond.

Spokane Distance Project: A dues-based men’s running club that provides a competitive team and training program for post-collegiate athletes.  

Palisades Running Club: Request to join group’s Facebook page to learn the schedule; meets near Palisades Park in west Spokane.

SPRING RACES & EVENTS

Get active and outside with these spring races and fun runs. For a more complete list of Inland Northwest running events, check out our Race, Ride & Event Guide online at OutThereOutdoors.com.

Negative Split Half Marathon, 10K, and 5K (April 7): Based in Kendall Yards, event now incorporates the annual Hunger Run.

Hauser Lake Icebreaker 5K & 10K Run (April 7): USATF-certified 10K course and Bloomsday second-seed qualifier. Runners and walkers with strollers or dogs are welcome.

Palouse 100K Relay & Solo Run (April 7): 100K Ultra Relay, 100K 10-person relay, 100K 5-person relay, and 100K Solo, organized by Palouse Road Runners.

Spring Dash (April 27): 5-mile Bloomsday second-seed qualifier race in Coeur d’Alene at McEuen Park.

Spokane River Run (April 28): 5, 10, 25, and 50K races plus 50K relay race at Riverside State Park.

Lilac Bloomsday Run (May 5): 12K race for runners and walkers of all paces. Wheelchairs and strollers welcome.

Priest Lake Marathon, Half-Marathon, 50K Ultra, & 5K Family Fun Run (May 11): Backcountry trail run through the Panhandle National Forest.

Trail Maniacs Farragut Trail Run (May 17-18): Weekend event at Farragut State Park includes a 5, 10, and 25K and free kids race.

Windermere Marathon & Half-Marathon (May 19): Flat and fast Boston-qualifier course along the Spokane River.

Coeur d’Alene Marathon, Half-Marathon, 10K & 5K run/walk (May 26): New marathon course organized by Negative Split. Strollers allowed for 5K. //

Amy S. McCaffree is Out There’s special section editor. She wrote the Inland Northwest Race, Ride & Event Guide in March.

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She’s talking about the symbiotic relationship between high school cross-country teams, local running races, and the BRRC. It works like this: The BRRC, a nonprofit organization committed to promoting distance running and walking in the Inland Northwest, puts on many races every year—among them the Sundae Sunday, the Spokane Marathon (plus half-marathon, relay, and 10K), and the St. Paddy’s Five Miler. These races require an enormous amount of human power to put on, from staffing aid stations to marking the route, providing entertainment, and cleaning up. Some years back the BRRC came up with a unique solution to support runners along the course and give back to the community at the same time: they take the majority of their profits and use them to pay cross-country teams for providing support at these races. Funds earned by high schoolers can go toward costs like uniforms or team shirts, entry fees for out-of-district meets, pizza parties, and travel expenses.

“It’s good for the kids to give, and it’s good for adults to see kids give. It’s kind of a win-win situation,” says Shauvin. “If we had to find volunteers to do all of that, it would be difficult. It’s a really great thing because we support the kids and the kids support us.”

Kevin Swaim, coach of the Lewis and Clark girls cross-country team, says supporting local races gives students the chance to see where they fit in the larger Spokane running community. Providing support at local races helps high schoolers “realize that a lot of the cool events that they will hopefully take advantage of when they are grown-ups depend on a lot of people, a lot of personnel,” he says. “This is a chance to realize, ‘Oh, this is how these things happen.’ You roll up your sleeves and get involved.’”

The financial incentive makes a difference, too, mitigating some expenses for team-building fun and running opportunities. Ava Bloom, a Lewis and Clark senior and one of this year’s cross-country team captains, says that the money helps their team (with nearly 60 girls on roster this past season) maintain one of their primary aims: inclusivity. “It gives us the ability to have inclusion as one of our values, and that was really, really important to me as a captain and as a runner,” she says.

Other schools have felt the positive effects of funds earned through BRRC as well. Ken Bell, coach of the boys cross-country team at Rogers, says that the BRRC “has really helped us.” Rogers students help along the course of the Spokane Marathon, and earn additional money from the BRRC by taking all of the medals out of their plastic sacks in advance of the race, a job that takes hours. Rogers uses some of the funds they earn to buy team t-shirts and to pay entry fees for meets outside the GSL. “It’s really nice that the community helps us out,” Bell says. “We don’t really have a booster club—even at our awards dinner, we’re lucky to have two or three parents out of forty kids.” The BRRC money helps bridge some of the gap.

For the runners who participate in local races, high school support gives a burst of energy and encouragement along the course. For the Spokane Marathon, Shauvin says the BRRC hires 14 teams to staff the aid stations; cross-country parents manage parking. In addition to cross-country teams, they also hire high school bands and cheerleaders, like the Shadle Park bagpipers. “If you’re running a marathon, you’re getting tired, you’ve got some crazy kids cheering for you, it takes your mind off the fact that your calves are killing you,” Shauvin says.

The goal is to get as many schools involved as possible. “We want to spread the wealth,” Shauvin says. One year, she remembers, Colville wanted to earn some money by helping with the Spokane Marathon, but the spots available were for musical entertainment. She asked if they had a band that could come. They didn’t. So now Colville students bang garbage cans at mile 20. This, she says, is a perfect solution. “You need a laugh at mile 20, and you’ve got high school kids banging garbage cans—that’s pretty good,” she says.

With so many teams out along the Spokane Marathon course, “It kind of turns into a friendly competition between schools and encourages a lot of our athletes to come out,” Ava Bloom of Lewis and Clark says. Each school chooses a theme and has fun dressing up—like the ‘80s, or Disney princesses.  The Spokane Marathon is “almost always the morning after Homecoming,” Bloom says. “The amount of girls who genuinely want to come out and sacrifice sleep for that speaks a lot to our team culture.”

Carolyn Belarde, a Spokane runner who completes many local races each year, recalls a memorable moment last fall during the Spokane Marathon. “I was coming up the hill into mile seven and as I turned the corner into the parking lot I heard this interesting noise. As I got closer I realized it was a local high school band playing their trumpets and trombones. They weren’t only playing, they were cheering on myself and all the other fellow runners. The energy they were sending was extremely high, almost too much. At that moment all I could do was smile and be thankful for these youth, coming out early on a cold Sunday to cheer us on.”

“Along the course I want to say all the local high schools were represented somehow,” Belarde says.

Both Swaim and Shauvin urge those who love to race to look not just at what’s convenient according to your schedule, but at who race funds support. “Local runs support local runners,” Shauvin says. “Support the locally-run races, because the money stays in town.”

Trail Races That Give Back

Other local races, like the Sekani Trail Run (September) and the Spokane River Run (April) also support local students; those races benefits the APPLE Program at Franklin Elementary and Garfield Elementary, respectively. APPLE is a part of the Spokane Public Schools system and stands for Alternative Parent Participation Learning Experiences.

For these races, the people benefiting from race funds—APPLE students and their families—provide all of the race support. The hours families put in also count toward the 90 volunteer hours required per family per year in the APPLE program.

“APPLE’s very community-based; it’s kind of its own little hub or family,” says Sekani race director Julie Lehmen Smith. “When you’re out there, all the kids are having fun, but you’re getting your APPLE hours in,” Smith says. “It turns into a really fun event for everyone.”

Runners who sign up for a race because they have students in the APPLE program often get hooked and continue after their students have graduated. This has been the case with the Spokane River Run. Jeff Zellerhoff, the race director, says there’s a real community feel among the volunteers who come together for this fundraiser. Each year, the biggest turnout is for the 5K distance. Before that race starts, they gather together all of the kids enrolled in Garfield APPLE at starting line and take a minute to show the participants who their entry fees have benefitted. Zellerhoff says many runners have said they end up signing up again after seeing those kids and being able to picture their dollars in action.

The River Run also has a high school cross-country connection; one of their longtime partner organizations is North Central girls cross-country. “Dempsey [Ortega, the NC coach] has been involved in the River Run and APPLE since the very first race,” says Zellerhoff. For North Central’s support, the River Run gives a portion of proceeds to the team. “A lot of people really believe in what we’re doing and who it benefits. I think it’s just an all-around really good thing,” Zellerhoff says.

Nonprofit organization Trail Maniacs also counts on volunteers to keep their trail races going; upcoming races include the Farragut Trail Run (May 18; 5K, 10K, and 25K) and the Mt. Spokane Vertical Challenge (July 13; 10K, 25K, and 50K). “Honestly, we just can’t have races without volunteers,” says race director Dave Dutro. Trail Maniacs encourages people to provide race-day support by giving a portion of their proceeds to any high school cross-country team that gets a group of seven or more together to help out. “I know that they need the help,” Dutro says of these high school teams. “They don’t get that much financial support. That way they can go out and do something fun, and see what racing can lead into for them as far as life enjoyment.”

Other incentives for volunteers include a one-to-one race registration deal: volunteer for a Trail Maniacs race, earn an entry to another race of equal value. This year they’re also giving volunteers money off race registration fees for time spent doing trail work. Another cool opportunity for youth: run any two Trail Maniacs races and receive a free pair of shoes from Fleet Feet Coeur d’Alene.

“It’s all yin and yang,” Dutro says. It’s just one more way volunteer incentives benefit the larger community. “If I can encourage people to get out and do trail work, it’s a win-win for everybody.”//

Want to Volunteer?

Ready to get involved? Check out these opportunities to help at upcoming races.

Spokane Marathon (October 13): Volunteers help with every aspect of the race: setup, registration, aid stations, and more. thespokanemarathon.com/

Trail Maniacs Volunteers with Trail Maniacs races earn credit toward other race entry fees. Volunteering for trail work reduces registration fees as well. High school cross-country teams who get together a volunteer group can earn money for their teams.trailmaniacs.com/

Spokane River Run (April 28): Fill out the volunteer application on the race website.

Happy Girls Spokane (September 21): Volunteers help with registration, stuffing bags, packet pickup, aid stations, and more. Pacers are also needed. “The role of volunteers is invaluable,” says Luke Larsen of Lay It Out Events, which puts on Happy Girls Spokane. “They are the heart and soul of the event and the race truly could not happen without their support.” //

Sarah Hauge lives in Spokane with her husband and two daughters, where she works as a writer and editor. She’s hoping to pull off the new-to-her feat of back-to-back half marathons this May (Windermere and Coeur d’Alene).  She writes Out There’s Run Wild Column.

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