St. Croix Running Company

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St. Croix Running Company

St. Croix Running Company coordinates several foot trail races in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

08/02/2026

There’s a version of “burn the ships” that’s genuinely useful in training — deciding ahead of time that today isn’t up for negotiation, so the tired voice in your head never gets a vote.

And there’s a version of it that’s dangerous, if it means you’ve also trained yourself to ignore real warning signs from your body.

This week’s blog is about the line between the two, and why it matters just as much for a 5-miler as it does for a hundred. Link in the comments.

07/26/2026

Heat wave got you dreaming of fall? Same.

Trout Brook is not Willow’s fall twin. It’s a different race on a different course, ten miles of technical single-track through the corner of Willow River State Park most people never find. Climbs, stairs, a waterfall that stops you in your tracks.

This park is my backyard, and I’m excited to share it.

📅 Saturday, October 10, 2026
📍 Willow River State Park, Hudson, WI
🔗 Register: https://ultrasignup.com/register.aspx?did=132870

07/19/2026

Deep in the biggest training weeks of my Superior 100 build right now — the kind of weeks where the calendar says 26 miles and your whole day is supposed to bend around it.

Then an old friend called last Saturday and asked if I wanted to come up to his cabin, where a group of us who had been inseparable in college was getting together for the first time in years. I said yes and moved the run to Monday.

Almost twenty years into this sport, here's what I’ve learned: it’s easy to let a race goal become who you are instead of just something you’re chasing. The miles pile up, the training talk takes over every conversation, and slowly, the people who knew you before any of this started competing with a training plan for your attention.

The race doesn’t love you back. Old friends who still call to invite you to places do.
This week’s blog is about that balance — what it costs when we let training swallow everything else, and why some of the best training we do happens nowhere near a trail. Link in the comments for the full read. Would love to hear how you all find that balance in your own training.

07/12/2026

Ever had your body pick the most inconvenient possible moment to remind you it’s in charge?

That happened to me a few weeks ago, midway through Superior 100 training. New post is about listening to your body and showing up healthy, whether you’re training for a 5-miler, a 10-miler, or a 100-miler.

https://www.stcroixrunningcompany.com/blog/show-up-healthy

07/09/2026

Let's talk about the comparison trap for a second.

You finish a race, or wrap up a hard training week, and the first thing you do is check how you stacked up against everyone else. Their pace. Their finish time. Their Strava kudos.

Here's the truth: that's a game you cannot win. There's always someone faster, always someone with a longer streak or a shinier medal wall. Chase that, and you're stuck on a loop that never actually satisfies you, even on the days you come out ahead.

The real competition was never the runner next to you. It's the version of you that wanted to quit at mile 14. It's the excuses you're really good at making at 5 a.m. That's a fight you can actually win, every single day, just by showing up a little better than yesterday.

New post on the blog this week is about exactly this: why the only race that matters is you versus you, and how to figure out what's actually driving you to lace up in the first place. Link in the comments.

06/28/2026

The In Yan Teopa Trail Race is named after a limestone arch on the bluff above Lake Pepin, a rock with an opening worn straight through it that was sacred to the Dakota long before it was a race. I wrote about what that name means, why the climbs are worth it, and why this overlooked park three hours south of the North Shore is one of my favorite places to run.

Five and ten mile options. Saturday, September 26, at Frontenac State Park. Registration is open now.

Read it here: https://www.stcroixrunningcompany.com/blog/find-the-opening

06/21/2026

Every long run has a sunny stretch where everything clicks. And every long run has the other stretch, the one where your legs go heavy, your back starts talking, and the dread creeps in.

This week on the blog, we’re making the case that those low miles aren’t something to survive. They’re something to play in. What if you got curious about the hard patch instead of bracing against it? What if you jumped in the puddle like a kid instead of running for the porch?

Link in the first comment.

06/13/2026

Last weekend I ran the FANS 24-Hour Endurance Event in Bloomington — 2-mile loops, 86 degrees, and more humidity than any race plan survives contact with.

I finished with 100 kilometers. The goal was 80 miles. The heat had other ideas.

But what I keep coming back to isn't the miles. It's Rylee tracking me on her phone at midnight, noticing I wasn't moving, and driving back to the course to get me going again. It's Warren and Eric showing up at exactly the right loops. Rick Berg is sneaking in an extra lap on me. Familiar faces on course when the legs had stopped cooperating.

Friends & Family don’t just make hard things easier. They make hard things possible.

05/30/2026

New post on the blog this week — and this one got a little personal.

I've been trying to explain what a 24-hour race actually feels like from the inside, and I kept coming back to something from my childhood: watching tractor pulls with my dad and the way those machines would launch off the line with everything they had, only to have the weight on the sled slowly press them into the dirt.

Endurance runners do the same thing. We start strong, confident, moving well. And then the hours stack up, and the weight moves forward.

FANS is one week out. 80 miles is the goal. Here's how I'm thinking about it.

05/24/2026

Every long run has that moment where your brain starts negotiating. The corner up ahead. The top of the hill. Just a minute.

I've started paying attention to whether I'm choosing to walk or needing to walk, and those two things feel pretty different once you learn to tell them apart.

My mantra heading into FANS and the Superior 100: choose to run. It's less about pace and more about staying honest with yourself when it's easier not to be.

New post on the blog this week. Link in the first comment.

Address

Hudson, WI
54016-7641

Website

https://www.stcroixrunningcompany.com/

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