Andy Balogh (runs2xs) : Member Profile : Thoos

I started playing soccer in high school and my coach, Greg Zielinski, encouraged me to do some running in the off season to increase my fitness. I found out that I was a better runner than I was soccer player. However, I still enjoy the game and play in a few adult leagues around town. My high school didnt offer cross country and barely had a track team, so I took to doing road races to get my fix in. When I started looking at colleges to attend, I contacted a few coaches to see if they would be interested in me, based on some of the road race times that I had done. Mike Wood at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga said that he would let me walk on the cross country team, so I decided to go to school there. In spite of being the slowest guy on the team, I learned what it is like to compete at a fairly high level and managed to turn in some reasonably fast times. However, I was handicapped by not having run much in high school and never caught up with the physical development of my peers on the team. My efforts to work hard on the off seasons earned me a series of injuries, including a stress fracture, which just put me further behind. After 3 years on the team, I moved on. I also experimented with doing triathlons in this time period, having been exposed to the sport in 1985. I have competed in the Memphis In May triathlon a few times, the last being in 1989.

Leaving the cross country team left a hole in my athletic life, so I joined the rowing team (crew)for the last couple of semesters that I was at UT Chattanooga. I enjoyed that, as it was a great outlet for my competitive insticts and was an interesting sport to learn.

Once I was out in the working world, I started to mountain bike and roller blade. These were "hot" sports at the time and I had fun with them. I also started running marathons and was able to turn in a 3:26 at Grandma's in Duluth, MN. in 1993. My interest in trail running started in this period as I became fascinated with the Pike's Peak Ascent and Marathon. 7,000 feet of elevation gain in 13 miles tends to get your attention! I went on to complete the Ascent 4 times and the Marathon once, which isnt too bad for a flatlander!

My experiences at Pike's Peak grew into a interest in trail ultra's. I stuck my toe in and ran a couple of trail 50k's in Arkansas. I also started to do some whitewater kayaking. I found that boaters tend to be a pretty laid back crowd and I found that refreshing after being around hyper competitive runners for so long. However, it wasnt long before I started to discover that people race kayaks and I jumped into that as well. In 2005, I trained for and completed the Phatwater Challenge, which is a 42 mile, dowstream kayak race on the Mississippi River.