Runner of the Month: Uli Steidl

RUNRACEWA is excited to announce its first ever Runner of the Month. In April we saw some great performances on both the road and on the track. With so many athletes running well across different distances and against varied levels of competition, it can make it hard to single out one runner as the best of the month; however, Uli Steidl took his talents and his fitness to the biggest stage in the world for marathoning and he ran like a champion. In case you didn’t know, Uli who is now 40, ran 2:23:08 on a day that saw temperatures in the 80’s and runners staggering to water stations along the course. Uli was 15^th overall and was the 2012 Masters Champion. So thus, Uli Steidl is our premiere Runner of the Month.

If you’ve never met or rubbed elbows with Uli, he is perhaps one of the most humble human beings that you will ever meet, that is extremely good(and accomplished) at something. There is no air of entitlement. There is no air of "I am here." Steidl is perhaps the embodiment of the often used Teddy Roosevelt/West African proverb “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Uli doesn’t say much, but his feet and lungs speak volumes. A few weeks before Boston, he ran the Mercer Island Half Marathon in a speedy 1:08:25 to win by almost 2 minutes on a challenging course. A few weeks before that he won the F5 St. Patrick’s Day Dash in Seattle, squeezing out a 3 second victory over Colton Tully-Doyle, who is about 18 years younger than Steidl. Tully-Doyle is no slouch; in fact he is the UW Indoor 3000 and 5000 meter record holder at 7:53 and 13:48.

Yesterday morning I prepared a few questions for Steidl and was getting ready to email them to him when I came across an interview with him on the new and improved Seattle Running Club website. The interview, conducted by Joe Creighton aka Shoeless Joe, is a must read, very zany and a great sktech of Uli Steidl, so I decided to toss my questions and provide a link to the interview. Uli talks about bottled water, his chances of beating Ichiro and Dirty Dancing-the movie, so you’ve got to check it out.

Shoeless Joe Interview # 1-Uli Steidl

Also considered for April's ROTM were: Rose Wetzel(multiple, multiple race weekend, 4:22  1500) Teshome Kokebe(2:24 at Eugene Marathon) and Lois Keller(9:59.79 3000m Steeplechase).

Each month RUNRACEWA will select an outstanding runner from the many superb athletes that run and race throughout Washington. If you would like to nominate a runner please send an email to runracewa@hotmail.com . Runners from all events and of all ages and abilities will be considered.