Summer is here; there’s a TON of stuff going on this season, but before we get to that we want to first introduce our June Spotlight Runner: Billy Peterson. Billy hails from Morgan; one of our favorite places on earth! They’re all pretty tough in Morgan and Billy is a great example. Billy spent ten years racing quarter horses as a professional jockey. In 1992, during the Utah Classic quarter horse finals in South Jordan, Billy won the futurity consolation race riding Ramblin’ Frank; Billy was only 19 years old. Three years later, Billy was considered the best quarter horse jockey in the country. In “retirement” Billy has run just about every marathon in Utah; he started with the Des News Marathon in 1999, running a 3:40 then he ran the Park City Marathon the following year in 3:50. After warming up with those two marathons, he killed it at the St. George marathon in ’02 with a 3:08 performance. He then went on a string of great marathon finishers at Salt Lake (3:13), Ogden (3:11), Rock-n-Roll (3:13), Ogden again (3:14), Top of Utah (3:17), Des News again (3:18) then in 2009 he went to Boston and ran their marathon in 3:20. In 2008 Billy ran ‘THEE’ hardest 50 miler in the country at Squaw Peak in 12:52 then the very next year he ran it again but 3 hours faster this time – 9:56! Billy is saddled up and ready to run Squaw Peak again this Saturday. Billy is also training for his first Wasatch 100 in September, all indications is that he’s going to do awesome at Wasatch. Billy is running healthy and on all 8 cylinders; just running a new PR at the Ogden Marathon with a time of 3:02! Billy is getting faster than many of the horses he used to ride:-)
Even with all of Billy’s running accomplishments, the thing that really caught our attention was the work Billy has been doing with a foundation called Livastride (www.livastride.org) The Livastride Foundation is all about helping young adults. It’s a hard thing to talk about, but the teen suicide rate in Utah is higher than in should be. In fact, there shouldn’t even be a teen suicide rate, but in the lives of teenagers, suicide is all too often a permanent act to temporary problems. Livastride offers programs & services to young adults to help them become active, educated and dream oriented. Billy lost his brother, Brody, to suicide. Since then, Billy has been on a mission to help kids in our community. Pretty cool we think.
Billy organizes a trail running event in his brother’s honor called “The Kid Custer” at Snowbasin resort. The Kid Custer (Brody’s nick name) consists of a 10K or 25K trail race. This year the race is Saturday, June 23rd. It should be a lot of fun, after the run there will be music, food and great vibes up at Snowbasin. Check out the Livastride website for registration and race info. You can also read all about Billy at www.stridersrunning.com
Even with all of Billy’s running accomplishments, the thing that really caught our attention was the work Billy has been doing with a foundation called Livastride (www.livastride.org) The Livastride Foundation is all about helping young adults. It’s a hard thing to talk about, but the teen suicide rate in Utah is higher than in should be. In fact, there shouldn’t even be a teen suicide rate, but in the lives of teenagers, suicide is all too often a permanent act to temporary problems. Livastride offers programs & services to young adults to help them become active, educated and dream oriented. Billy lost his brother, Brody, to suicide. Since then, Billy has been on a mission to help kids in our community. Pretty cool we think.
Billy organizes a trail running event in his brother’s honor called “The Kid Custer” at Snowbasin resort. The Kid Custer (Brody’s nick name) consists of a 10K or 25K trail race. This year the race is Saturday, June 23rd. It should be a lot of fun, after the run there will be music, food and great vibes up at Snowbasin. Check out the Livastride website for registration and race info. You can also read all about Billy at www.stridersrunning.com
