The wrap up article from the press:
https://406mtsports.com/extra/hes-been-everywhere-billings-man-jogs-through-every-street-in-town/article_92e5f96c-d13f-5fd6-a32e-1f1a059a3b3b.html
Now that the project has come to and end, one of the most frequent questions I get is “Now what? What’s your next project?” I don’t really have an answer at this time but I am clear that I am a “Project and Process Person” and usually have a few going simultaneously. I suppose that my last big project was obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in ‘22 from Montana State University, Billings, a project that took me seven years to complete. Just prior to graduating, I bought a motorcycle and sort of have a goal to ride it 10,000 miles per year. So far, I’m on track, having over 37,000 miles on it now. (I have a blog for that activity too: https://fjradventures.blogspot.com/)
That said, I have some personal goals that I’m not ready to write about but will continue making art (mostly drawing and photography), cooking, running, fiddling with vintage audio stuff, and keeping a few vintage cars running.
As I reflect back on this project, I never had time goal, either for individual runs or for the project to end. I figured that it would take over a year and as I got into last spring I could see that the routes would be completed sometime in the summer. As the number of runs that were left numbered in the single digits, Shelley and I started talking about what and where the last run would be. One thing we agreed on was that there would be beer at the end.
As I looked at what streets were left, I saw that the Daybreak and Trails West subdivisions would make a perfect ending as it was close to Shelley’s end of town, close to place we could park and have a beer afterwards, and a simple course (with no hills) that really demonstrated what running a project like this entails with the many twists and turns and out-and-backs. Inviting others from our running club and the press was a decision made just a few days before the last run.
Some simple stats:
Total miles run: 1.057.26
Totals miles run with Shelley: 514.74 (48% of the total)
Number of individual routes: 194
Average pace: about 14 minute miles (lots of stopping for map checks, photos, etc.)
Time to accomplish the project: January 2, 2023 to August 3, 2024
Number of photos taken: LOTS
Number of incidents with dogs: 0
Number of incidents with vehicles: 0
Number of other runners who ran with us: a bunch that included, Brad, Jessica, Katie, Jerry, Bart the Dog,
and a few more
Favorite part of town: definitely the Southside
Least favorite part of town: it’s a secret
The “I’m glad that is over” route:. Frontage road
Range of weather: heat, cold, snow, rain, hail, ice, wind
Injuries: only one when I tripped over Bart the Dog and bruised my left thigh
Time off from the project: once because I had surgery and a couple of times because I was traveling
Pairs of running shoes used: I think it was three
Another interesting aspect of the project was how many times we’d run a route and then, later in the day, some criminal activity would take place a few hours later. Shelley and I would text each other saying “Hey, we were just there!” Luckily, we didn’t witness or encounter any criminal activity on our runs. We did enjoy talking to people we’d meet along the way. A gentleman in Rehberg Estates gave us some tips for where to do trail running in that area. We stopped to take a photo of a mural on the Southside and a gentleman stopped in his car and told us where to find some others in the area. It was all friendly and encouraging. One morning we were running past a group of folks who had just come out of the mission downtown and they formed a cheering squad.
Of course, one of the goals with the project was to see ALL of Billings. I’ve been here for over 30 years and there were streets I’d never explored and this gave me a chance to find all sorts of hidden treasures in the city. As I live on the West End, I don’t get to Billings Heights often and when I do it’s usually just to pass through. Running all the streets there has expanded my understanding of that part of town and I ran through many neighborhoods where I told myself “I could live here.” As we ran down some of the more obscure routes, one of the most common phrases Shelley I used was “I’ve never been down this street before.”
I am also impressed by the range of neighborhood types across the city, ranging from high density apartments, to the sprawling semi-rural, to the historic homes, to the massive ones, to the affordable ones, and to the “tidy” ones. That latter type comes from a description used by my mother in her preference for a neighborhood with a high degree of sameness and, probably, rules about what can be displayed in front. And, speaking of display, we always had our eyes out for interesting yard art. Some seemed quite intentional while others take a more abstract approach. It was that kind of individuality that made many of these routes fun.
The only thing left on the project is that I want to build a zoomable map that has clickable spots on it marking the general area for each of the 194 routes. This would let the viewer zoom in on a part of town and click on a selection that would take them to the blog entry for that run. I am looking at some software for building but there is a bit of learning curve. I guess that is one of my next projects.
