4 Top 10 USATF Championships finishes; member of winning Team USA at 2013 NACAC Cross Country Championships; Winner, 2022 and 2023 Bayshore Marathon, course record-holder; Winner, 2023 Baltimore Marathon 2021 and Charlevoix Marathon , course record-holder; 2010 NAIA Champion, 3,000m steeplechase; 2-time NAIA Championships runner-up 3,000m steeplechase

Together with my wife of 14 years (Andi, also a Trials qualifier), I have two sons (Miles, 7 and DJ, 6). We married before our senior year of college (so that she wouldn't get swept up by all the much faster and better-looking guys around!). Our lives have been and continue to be intimately influenced by our families: my dad and step-mom, Doug and Michelle Ripley, mom and step-dad Roy and Sue Fedewa, and Andi's parents, Paul and Robin Owens as well as our siblings and siblings-in-law, Kevin and Nicole Dufendach, Jessica and Shay Jenkins, Ben and Randi Ripley-Ford, Luke and Eliza Owens, Caleb and Sage Davis, and George and Doni Goad. I assume you would prefer I don't start to list all our nephews and nieces as well (there's only 14...). I cannot ever talk about influences on my life as a runner, though, without a very special shout-out to my past coach of many years, Nate "Q" Van Holten. Q is the man who single-handedly taught me how to love the sport.

Accomplishment? "Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun." (Eccl 2:11, ESV) If I have accomplished anything worth noting here, it is the clear realization of my own broken and wayward heart, for in that realization, I discovered not only a need but a desire for the everlasting love and grace of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!

I don't train with any kind of objective external measures. I don't measure pace. I don't run with a heart-rate monitor. I don't wear a watch most of the time. Sometimes I don't even know how far or for how long I'm running. This is true in races as well. So when my buddy saw I qualified for the Trials again, he congratulated me. Then he asked the classic question: Did you think you were ready to run that fast? (It was about a 2-minute PB for me at the time). I replied honestly: No. Because I didn't even know what pace or exactly how far I was running in training. In follow-up, he asked how I knew what pace to run in the race then, like what I could handle. Fact was, I told him, that I not only didn't know what pace I could run in the race, I didn't know what pace I WAS running. I ran comfortably for 13 miles, then ran hard for 13 miles. But I did cheat once. With two miles to go, I looked at the clock and saw what the total time said. Quick math revealed the truth of what was happening, and I nearly stumbled both in surprise and the shot of adrenaline that went through me when I realized what was happening. It was a great day!

"But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31)

Family jogs through leafy fall trails or Christmas Eve lights.