(Stats and station by station breakdown below)

Sometime in late 2022, I decided I was going to run the Go! St. Louis Marathon happening on April 1st, 2023. I had run one other official marathon back in 2006, and I wasn’t very happy with my time, so I wanted to do some better training and lower my marathon PR, at least under the 5 hour mark. I also found myself not in the greatest distance running shape at the time, so it was evident some training was needed.

I am not the kind of person who is going to strictly stick with a documented training plan, nor someone who will run the same familiar routes over and over again, just not my style. I think one boring day, staring at Google maps, I started googling how far certain Metro Link stations were from my house. Started with the closer ones, then to the ones that were a bit further away. Then at some point, I think the lightbulb went off, why not use the Metro stations as marathon training? And the challenge was on.

The closest station to my house is Skinker, at the corner of Skinker and Forest Park Parkway. This would be home base, the station that I always returned to and from which I’d walk/jog home. I would run to every station, then take the train back to Skinker, eventually completing all 38 stations on the Red and Blue lines. I knew it would be a pretty tall order to complete all 38 stations in 5 months, and I knew I wasn’t going to want to run the really long stations very close to the marathon, which would tire out my legs.

So November 1st 2022, I picked Shrewsbury Landsdowne I-44, 2.8 miles away, as my first station. Two days later, I ran to Cortex, 3.5 miles, then Grand station 4 days later. There was absolutely no plan as to a sequence or order in which to do them. If I had a chunk of time free, I simply looked at the map and distances, and decided what might be fun that day. Generally, I’d knock out some of the shorter distance stations first, gradually adding distance. However, I did want to save some of the shorter distance stations to mix in with the longer distance ones later on in the training. I also had no set route. I had used Google maps walking mode to initially get the distances I could expect for each station, but I often took shortcuts where possible and tried to limit trespassing or fence climbing.

In November, I got busy knocking out stations, and did my first river crossing run on November 18th, crossing the Eads bridge to get to the East Riverfront station. The Eads is what I used to cross the Mississippi to get to all Illinois stations. Other than a lot of broken glass on the pedestrian walkway, it’s a wonderfully scenic way to see the river and the STL skyline, plus a terrific gateway to East St. Louis. On one memorable run, my friend Sean joined me to run to Jackie Joyner Kersee Center station in East St. Louis. A block from the station was a conveniently located package liquor store, so we ended our run with a couple of brown-bagged tall boys: the peak of refreshment.

By the end of 2022, I had finished 16 of 38 stations. Lambert Airport has 2 stations, so that required 2 separate runs to nearly the same location, which I knocked out in January and early February. On January 21st, I ran to Fairview Heights station, a bit of a milestone. It’s the last station on the Blue line, and the first station located past the American Bottoms floodplain of East St. Louis, beyond which are the very initimidating distances of the rest of the Illinois stations.

Getting into March, it was time to start tapering for the April 1st marathon. My last long run before the race was to Swansea station, 21.2 miles on March 5th. Marathon day came, the weather was incredible and I managed to finish my marathon in about 4:37, meeting my goal of sub 5 hours. I looked at my list of remaining stations: 4 to go. Skinker, 1.7 miles from home. Then 3 intimidating Illinois stations a minimum of 23 miles from home, with Shiloh – Scott at 30 miles away. Ugh.

I went ahead and knocked out Belleville after some recovery from the marathon. This was a special one, where I was able to take a couple block detour to stop by the house where my grandparents lived when I was growing up, so many great memories! I never thought I’d arrive there on foot. I went ahead and knocked out Skinker as well, trying to run to that one as fast as I possibly could – 7:43 min/mile! Only 2 more stations to go! But summer was soon in full swing, and I absolutely dreaded spending 6 hours in blazing heat on concrete with limited spots to stop, cool off and drink fluids.

So cold weather was soon upon us again, and I made the conscious decision to run a bit more so a couple 26+ mile runs wouldn’t absolutely wreck me. In December 2023, I knocked out (SWIC) College station on an unseasonably warm day. Then yesterday, with temps maxing out in the mid-50s, it was time to finish it off. No more dawdling, this guy is starting a new job Monday so free time for a 6+ hour run might not come so easy.

I set out from home around 8:40am, at the same time my wife Sara was leaving for work. I decided on this one to run 2 miles, then walk 1, and see how long I could keep that up. I snaked through downtown STL, across my familiar Eads bridge river crossing, then into East St. Louis. So the streets of East St. Louis are interesting in countless ways, but in particular, starting at the river, the streets are numbered from 1st street, all the way to 89th street when you get closer to the bluffs and into Belleville. So every run deep into Illinois, I take State Street, as it’s the straightest, easiest to navigate and gets me to the great connector routes for stations further afield. I try to avoid looking at every single street sign, from 13th, 25th, 51st, 75th, man these streets are going by really slow! Then the amazing thing is, once you cross the 89th block, aka Hwy 157, the streets start again at 101st street and continue counting DOWN as you make your way into Belleville! Some days it was maddening paying attention to street signs.

Anyway, yesterday I connected to the fantastic greenway that runs parallel to the Metro tracks pretty much from Fairview Heights Station all the way out to Shiloh – Scott. My run 2 miles/walk 1 mile got me almost to 20 miles, and it was all walking after that. I stopped for a greasy burger and sugary drink at Jack in the Box around mile 22. In studying google maps, I also found a different street-based route that would shave a couple miles off my run rather than staying on the greenway the entire time. There were only a couple harrowing stretches where I was facing down cars coming at me with little room to move over on the side of the road, but altogether a pretty safe and scenic route. I soon found myself in the town of Shiloh, and only 3.5 miles away from the station. I popped 2 Ibuprofin for the home stretch and around 3:15 pm, I strolled into the station, completing all 38 stations once and for all.

I hopped on board, back to Skinker, then enjoyed a very slow walk home in the early twighlight.

I could pontificate at length on a lot of things related to this challenge: the state of our public transportation network, the urban decay and renewal of many of the areas I ran through, pedestrian safety in the age of killer cars and inattentive drivers, how pursuing a life of Microadventures can save the planet and provide personal fulfillment, etc. But I’ll save my thoughts on those for now and if you see me in person, we can chat about it over a brown bag tall boy.

mf

Station	Distance from home (google)	Line	Completed Date	Actual Distance	Pace (min/mile)
Shrewsbury Landsdowne I-44	2.8	Blue	11-1-22	2.84	9:22
Cortex	3.4	Red/Blue	11-3-22	3.57	9:09
Grand	4.1	Red/Blue	11-7-22	4.12	9:16
Sunnen	2.3	Blue	11-12-22	2.4	9:04
Wellston	3.5	Red	11-15-22	3.62	9:05
University City Big Bend	2.4	Blue	11-16-22	2.39	15:53
East Riverfront	8	Red/Blue	11-18-22	8.94	9:21
Forest Park Debaliviere	2.6	Red/Blue	11-19-22	2.51	14:51
UMSL North	7	Red	11-21-22	7.53	9:51
Clayton	3.1	Blue	11-24-22	3.25	9:51
Forsyth	3	Blue	11-28-22	3.35	10:01
Rock Road	4.6	Red	12-1-22	4.62	9:42
Jackie Joyner Kersee Center	11.8	Red/Blue	12-2-22	11.7	10:12
Civic Center	6	Red/Blue	12-6-22	6.13	9:45
Delmar Loop	3.4	Red	12-24-22	2.47	10:36
Central West End	3.2	Red/Blue	12-27-22	4.5	9:37
Maplewood Manchester	2.1	Blue	1-8-23	2.36	9:21
Lambert Airport T1	10.4	Red	1-13-23	11.15	10:25
8th and Pine	6.6	Red/Blue	1-17-23	6.89	9:33
Brentwood I-64	2	Blue	1-20-23	1.96	9:00
Fairview Heights	16.1	Red/Blue	1-21-23	16.4	11:50
UMSL South	6.9	Red	1-24-23	6.67	10:12
Convention Center	6.9	Red/Blue	1-31-23	7.27	10:03
Lambert Airport T2	10	Red	2-4-23	10.28	11:00
Stadium	6.5	Red/Blue	2-7-23	6.59	9:23
Washington Park	13.1	Red/Blue	2-11-23	12.95	11:01
Richmond Heights	3.1	Blue	2-13-23	5.19	9:20
5th and Missouri	9	Red/Blue	2-16-23	8.75	9:49
Emerson Park	10.7	Red/Blue	2-18-23	10.76	10:49
Laclede’s Landing	7.2	Red/Blue	2-20-23	7.64	9:37
Memorial Hospital	19.7	Red	2-25-23	19.22	11:19
North Hanley	7.7	Red	3-2-23	7.71	9:47
Swansea	22	Red	3-5-23	21.29	11:36
Union Station	5.8	Red/Blue	3-22-23	5.92	9:43
Belleville	23.2	Red	4-29-23	23.37	13:13
Skinker	1.7	Blue	5-3-23	1.74	7:43
College	27	Red	12-14-23	25.99	12:42
Shiloh Scott	30.7	Red	3-21-24	28.25	13:03
Total	319.6			322.29