Our Neighbor: Young runner hitting his stride

PALMER — One young man is well on his way to becoming the next Valley ultra-runner extraordinaire.

Zac Cheyette, 10, ran his first half-marathon this year in 2 hours, 1 minute and 55 seconds at the Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon event in Anchorage. His longest prior race was 5 kilometers — 3.1 miles, compared to 13.2 for half-marathon.

“At the beginning (it was) kind of (nerve-racking) because there was everybody in groups, but then as you went on it got really thin,” Zac said, of the competition in the June half-marathon.

With one mile left, he felt a mixture of exhaustion, relief and excitement.

“I was practically celebrating ’cause I was almost done,” Zac said. “It was cool because I had my sister and my mom cheering me on, and then my friend and his dad.”

Zac’s support crew going into the race was much larger than his immediate family and close friends, however.

As one of the few children — let alone adults — who continued to run through the winter at the Palmer Happy Run this past year, Zac could hardly be overlooked by the run’s sponsors.

“Zac is an amazing runner and has been so committed all year to the Happy Run,” said Anne Thomas, owner of Body in Balance and Active Soles Performance Footwear. “He is truly a gifted runner, and he just loves it.”

Because of this, Thomas approached him about joining the shoe store’s new racing team. Runners need not practice as a team, but must simply compete in six races a year, wearing the Active Soles logo. Commitment to the sport and some natural talent also are key, Thomas said.

And a little inspiration helps, too. Zac gets a lot of his from David Johnston, the Willow ultra-runner of local and national fame.

Johnston said he first met Zac when the older spoke at Active Soles last year. Johnston heard more about Zac and his desire to race a half-marathon from the boy’s mother, Rachel Gernat, at a Palmer Chamber of Commerce meeting. Intrigued, he asked to talk to the young runner, who happened to be in attendance that day.

“He’s a cool kid,” Johnston said.

More than 30 years his senior, the Willow runner towers over Zac, but there are some similarities. They both have long, blonde hair — Johnston said they’re now in competition to see who can grow his hair the longest — and they’re both left-handed.

“That’s probably how he gets that kinda runner’s brain mentality,” Johnston speculated.

When Zac found out about the Willow Running Company, headed by Johnston and his wife, Andrea Hambach, he immediately wanted to run their Willow Winter Solstice half-marathon. But his parents said he needed to finish something a little shorter first.

“His dad and I told him he wasn't gonna run a winter half as his first half marathon, given the other elements,” Gernat said.

As a fourth-grader at the time, Zac had only raced as far as the standard distance for elementary school cross country races, no more than 2 miles. He had gone on longer runs in training, but his parents were concerned the extra exertion of racing, doubled with the below-freezing temperatures, would be hard on his lungs. The Willow Winter Solstice 5k would be OK though, Zac’s doctor said.

“She told us his body would probably hold up better than ours,” Gernat said. “If (the weather) was fine for us, it’d be fine for him if we dressed him properly.”

After finishing that snowy, zero-degree 5k in 16th place (out of 51), with a time of 32:06, Zac was ready for anything.

“I think he was always wondering how far he could go, and I told him, ‘you can go as far as you want,’” Johnston said.

Johnston said he was about the same age as Zac when he began running races regularly outside of school, though he didn’t begin ultra-running until he was an adult. He, like Zac, didn’t think of running so much as a career as a young boy, but just did it for the enjoyment.

“Soccer’s my main sport, I do running for fun,” Zac said.

The 10-year-old also plays hockey and baseball, but soccer, Johnston said, is probably what will help him most in training for school and personal races.

“I think soccer is probably the best sport he can be in,” Johnston said. “When I was in high school (track), those were the hardest guys to beat. …We were always trying to recruit the soccer guys to do cross country instead.”

Zac has also been competing in triathlons since he was 5 years old, taking third overall in the children’s division of the Why Not Tri this year. His running time was the fastest in the division.

Whatever Zac chooses to do — he has a goal of running a full marathon by the time he’s 20, and a 50k by the time he’s 26 — he appears well on his way to joining the ranks of the Valley’s star runners.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.