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Outdoors
RUNNING THE PARKS
Former management consultant sets out to run self- styled marathons in all 59 U.S. national parks
Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota. PHOTO COURTESY BILL SYCALIK
RBY TRISTAN SCOTT
unning a marathon and visiting a national park are both bandied about as frequent “bucket list”
items, falling right in line with skydiving and traveling the world on the popularity spectrum of once-in-a-lifetime whims.
That’s how it all started for Bill Syca- lik, who 12 years ago ticked o his objec- tive of running 26.2 miles by complet- ing the Detroit Marathon. After that, he became hooked on the sport of distance running.
Now, he’s scratching away at another lifetime goal — to run the length of a mar- athon in each of the country’s 59 national parks, his own self-styled salute to the National Park Service’s 100th anniver- sary this year.
He’ll come one step closer to achieving that goal this week when he checks park No. 11 o his list by running the mara- thon distance in Glacier National Park.
At 45, Sycalik is in the midst of a dra- matic lifestyle change. Earlier this year, he was toiling away as a corporate tech- nology information manager in New York City, running marathons and ultra-mar- athons in his spare time to slake his crav- ing for adventure, but more often mired in the workaday rat race.
Then the lease to his apartment came up, and he was overcome with wanderlust.
“I just kind of got tired of corporate America and city life,” Sycalik said. “It was di cult to get outdoors and connect with nature, so when my lease was sched- uled to come up in May I decided to move
Running legend Jerry Dunn joined Bill Sycalik for a portion of his self-managed marathon in South Dakota’s Wind Cave National Park. PHOTOS COURTESY BILL SYCALIK
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AUGUST 17, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
west.”
Having never been west of Detroit,
Sycalik wanted a sabbatical between leaving New York City and settling in Col- orado, and what better way to explore the country than by visiting a few national parks along the way.
“I read that it was the centennial anni- versary of the National Park Service, and I started wondering how I could incorpo- rate that into my time o ,” he said. “And my idea was, ‘Well, why not run a mara- thon in every park?’”
On June 18, he kicked o the project in earnest when he ran Acadia National Park in Maine before picking his way across the country in his Subaru, which he retro tted with a rooftop pop-up tent.
An accomplished marathon runner who has twice posted speedy enough nishing times to qualify for the Boston Marathon, Sycalik is eschewing time goals on his park adventure. Instead, he’s taking time to enjoy the parks while
encouraging others to join him along the way.
In Badlands National Park, he hooked up with a running partner with a lengthy resume of unique running feats. Jerry Dunn, or “America’s Marathon Man,” gained prominence in the running world in 1993 when he completed 104 mara- thons. In 1998, he ran the New York City Marathon course for 28 consecutive days, competing in the actual event on the 29th day.
In 2000, Dunn dispatched 200 mar- athon-distance runs, but his most trea- sured accomplishment is running the fabled Boston Marathon course on 26 consecutive days in 1996, with the 26th day being the 100th running of the oldest marathon in the country.
When the 70-year-old Dunn caught wind of Sycalik’s running adventure, he couldn’t resist the urge to join him.
“This is the original marathon man,” Sycalik said. “He ran the rst half of the
Badlands run with me and half of the Wind Cave route, and he let me stay at his house. He’s just a super guy.”
The objective of Sycalik’s project is to showcase the beauty and import of national parks, as well as the sport of running, and he’s reached out to run- ning clubs in each of the communities he’s visited.
“This is a way for me to see every park at the ground level in a relatively short amount of time,” Sycalik said, add- ing that he expects the project to take between 18 months to two years. “But I also wanted it to be community oriented, and hopefully people will be inspired to run in their national parks. The idea is to get people inspired to hike or run or just get out and move.”
Follow Sycalik on Instagram at @run- ningtheparks, on Twitter at @runthep- arks or on his blog at www.runningthep- arks.com.
tscott@ atheadbeacon.com