The news about Zach Miller is spreading! Check out the Blog - iRunFar
Great read!! Some of the highlights!
He didn’t just win, either, he ran the third-fastest time in the now 50-year history of the race.
Zach's job on the cruise ship?
I have a mechanical-engineering degree, but in college I did an internship with a printing company and I designed printers on an engineering team. When I got out of college, I got an offer from this British printing company to run their print operations on cruise ships. So I’m the Digital Print Shop Manager (my title), but on the cruise ship they just call me the Chief Printer. I’m in charge of pretty much all the printing that goes on on board the cruise ship. So I deal with all the customers and do all the paperwork and everything, but I also maintain all the equipment. If we’re in the middle of the ocean and something breaks down, we have to fix it as fast as possible or we start losing money. So I’m the guy that’s lying underneath the printer with a flashlight and a screwdriver. I fix everything. That’s a big part of my job.
Zach's work schedule?
I’m usually at sea for five months at a time and then on land, on a vacation for about two months. It’s not strict. The first time I did it, I was at sea for seven months and then I was on vacation for six weeks. Then I was somewhere on the ship for three and a half months, now I’m off for two and a half months. I go back in December and I’ll be there for the winter for about four months. I’ll get off in April.
Zach's background in running?
In elementary school, we’d run the mile. I couldn’t run 100 meters to save my life, but I could beat most of the kids in the mile. Not all of them—I’d get beat by one or two kids, but I could tell I was pretty good. In eighth grade I started running track, and I kept playing soccer. Around 10th grade, the coaches started bugging me about running cross country. They’d be like, “Zach, what are you doing this fall?” I’d be like, “I don’t know,” because I’d want to play soccer. So in 10th grade–it was really hard–but I decided to stop playing soccer seriously and to run cross country. I told my high-school coach and he said that he’d pretty much expected it. He wasn’t fazed by it.
I started running cross country and I just fell in love. I just loved it. From then on, it was just running year-round—cross country, indoor track, outdoor track. In high school, I was good, but I wasn’t an absolute star. I only ran probably 16:55 or something in cross country for 5k. I ran the two mile in 10:05. My 1600 time was 4:47. I didn’t have much speed. But by my senior year our team did go to state, and we were really excited about that. I never medaled or anything. We were just happy to go.
And Coach Bradley had some influence!
My high school track coach. I came home and I saw him and he pulls out his phone and he goes, “I have a race for you. You’re going to run the JFK 50 Mile.” I look at it and I’m like, “Fifty miles? That’s a long race. I can do 31, but 50?” I really wasn’t sure. I was talking to him and a local pro triathlete from my area who I went to high school with, Andrew Yoder, and we all agreed, at least those two agreed–no, I agreed too–that I needed to get in some sort of high-profile race. I wasn’t so sure about JFK. So I started looking around and I found Bootlegger. I went to my coach and I said, “Coach, I found a race. It’s in Nevada. It’s the USATF Trail 50k Championships. This I can do.” He says, “Yeah, that’s the race. That would be great.” He’s like, “I’d even take you to it except I’m on vacation in Florida.”
They asked Zach about running 50 miles under 6 hours?
I knew I was strong. I was training well. I had accidentally run 35 miles with my track coach one day at 7:40 pace with a bunch of wrong turns. I was running; my track coach was biking. When I say “accidentally” it just sounds funny that way. It was supposed to be a 30-mile loop around a lake near Reading, Pennsylvania. I made some wrong turns and was determined to get the right route, so I kept backtracking. By the time I figured it all out, it was about 35 miles. I wasn’t tanked when I finished. I was talking; I was fine. I hadn’t taken any water during the run, just some homemade gels that I make. My coach had water for me, but when we got to the hills, it’s a lot of singletrack trail. When we got to the hills—he was on his mountain bike and I was running—and he said, “See you at the top,” and I never really saw him again. So I didn’t get my water, which was okay. That gave me some confidence for JFK. It suggested maybe I could run around six hours for JFK because I know that JFK’s middle section is all flat. That middle section is real flat and the trail I was running had some good hills in it. That was a good indicator.
This is an amazing story! Read it!
