Name: Ben Syzek
DBR Ambassador: Core Team – Website Development & Colorado Springs Ambassador
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
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1. Favorite Trail: Rainbow Trail (Salida, CO)
2. Favorite Race: Cruel Jewel 100
3. Favorite Running Fuel: Honey Stinger Waffles (Gingersnap flavor)
4. Favorite Beer: At the moment, Eddyline’s Crank Yanker IPA. Historically, though, Bell’s Two Hearted Ale.
5. Favorite Post-run/race Food: Cheez-Its, Cheez-Its, and more Cheez-Its. If you give me Cheese Nips, I’ll kill you.
6. Favorite Shoes: Altra Lone Peaks
7. Bucket List Race: Hardrock (If Nolan’s 14 counts as a race, I’d put that one on there as well.)
8. Fastest Beer Mile Time: Haven’t tried one yet!
9. How many miles per week do you run: It’s highly, highly variable. Without a race coming up 40-50 plus a lot of hiking. Pre-race, though, I usually go up to around 80 with plenty of hiking.
10. Trail Music: Nope. Never do music on the trails.
11. You know you’re a Dirtbag when: You can fit everything you own into your Honda Accord…and most of that space is taken up by outdoor gear.
12. Favorite type of Dirtbag home: I think I’d really dig living in a shipping container by the ocean.
13. Famous runner crush: Jenn Shelton. She seems crazy and I like it ☺
14. Famous runner you’d want to run with: Ever since seeing ‘Unbreakable’ I’ve wanted to go run in Alaska with Geoff Roes. I remember in the movie him camping out before the WS 100 and just eating some noodles and thinking to myself that he’d be a pretty cool dirtbag to hang out with.
15. When was your last shower: This morning. I do my best thinking in the shower, so I take them fairly regularly.
16. What is your crosstraining activity of choice: Mainly hiking and in the winter snowshoeing. But really fly fishing. Hey, when I’m not running I’m relaxin.
17. I felt most like a badass runner when: I only hit my snooze one time before a morning run. That’s one of the hardest things in the world to do.
18. Piece of gear you can’t live without: Smartwool Socks
19. What is a quirky habit you have while running: I wear orange Oakley sunglasses that I’ve had since high school on top of my head (sometimes even at night), but I never actually put them on my eyes while running (unless it’s for a picture). Not sure why, but I can’t stand having them over my eyes when I’m running.
20. Three words that describe your running: Luxurious, robotic, and craggy.
21. Your go-to running outfit is: Altra Lone Peak shoes (blue and gray), Smartwool PhD socks (black), Nike compression shorts (black), Salomon running shorts (black), DBR singlet (black), 15 year old Oakley sunglasses (orange).
22. Ask yourself a question:
Why does it seem like it’d be so easy to eat 50 scrambled eggs in 1 hour, but nearly impossible to eat 50 hardboiled eggs in 1 hour? Is it all in my head?
Anything else you’d like the DBR community to know about you:
Ummmm, I also enjoy shooting videos and taking pictures. I’d love to make a Billy Yang-style dirtbag runner documentary film one day. Other than that, if you’re reading this, don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’re ever in Colorado Springs or the Salida/Buena Vista, CO area. I just like running (read in your best Forrest Gump voice) so whether you’re fast, slow, or just right, let’s hit the trails, hang out, and get dirty.
