By Aubrey Hopkins
Western Herald
When people think of student-athletes, the first thing to come to their mind is probably someone that plays a sport specifically tied into Western Michigan University athletics.
However, that’s not always true.
There are some students at WMU that dedicate themselves to a sporting event with no relation to the school.
Take WMU students Zack Pierson and Chad Shafer for example. The two friends work out together at the Student Recreation Center all the time and figured it would be a good idea to put their hard work to the test. So in the fall of 2008, Pierson and Shafer signed up for the Men’s Health magazine Urbanathalon in Chicago, Ill.
An Urbanathalon is like track and field’s steeplechase, but on steroids. In an Urbanathalon, participants run 11 miles and go through various obstacles throughout the city (stairs and climbing walls are examples).
Pierson and Shafer found out about the Urbanathalon when Pierson, in the beginning of 2008, was on menshealth.com and saw an advertisement for the event.
“I was on the Web site just messing around and I saw an ad for it,” Pierson said. “I clicked it and watched some videos that were on the site and thought it looked cool.”
For Pierson, the challenge of doing something that would push him both physically and mentally made joining the Urbanathalon a no-brainer.
“I hadn’t been involved in any sports since high school,” Pierson said. “But since me and Chad were working so hard just doing regular workouts in the gym we figured, ‘Why not?’ and went ahead and signed up.”
The two friends would spend the rest of the 2008 spring semester and the time they had during the summer and before the event training in the SRC for their future test. Although they would run the event together, they would not train together over the summer before the new school year.
“Chad was able to do some training over the summer,” Pierson said. “But I had a pretty demanding job that took up all of my time.”
For Shafer, not being able to go to the SRC over the summer forced him somewhat to change his workout plan.
“I had to stop taking protein and stuff because it wasn’t so much about building muscle as it was to get more endurance,” Shafer said. “I also did a lot more free weight exercises, but didn’t lift very heavy amounts.”
Flash forward to October 18, 2008, the morning of the race. Shafer and Pierson were lined up in the second wave of runners out of a total group of 3,500.
The two came in with one rule for the entire race: don’t walk.
“It was basically our goal the whole time,” Shafer said. “I mean, it wouldn’t have felt right if, after all the work we did, that we end up walking during the race.”
The one thing both Shafer and Pierson agreed on about the Urbanathalon was that it was easier to run it with a friend that could help you press on.
“I think that’s the main reason we didn’t walk,” Pierson said. “Having someone there to keep willing you on when you’re tired is really a good feeling. It makes things a lot easier.”
When the race had finished both runners were elated, placing 161 and 162, 20 minutes behind the overall race winner.
“As soon as I jumped over the wall and ran across the finish line I felt great,” Shafter said. “My body was tired, but it proved to me that all my hard work had paid off.”
Pierson called his parents as soon as he could get to a phone after the race.
“I was happy for myself because of the work I put in,” Pierson said. “But my parents may have been even more excited for me.”
Both students plan on running in this year’s Urbanathalon and are thinking of participating in other marathons during the summer.
Shafer had advice for anyone that may want to enter a marathon but isn’t sure.
“Try and find a friend that wants to join too,” Shafer said. “It makes things a whole lot easier training and actually running in the race.”
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