Cody Holliday is a functional skills teacher at Oakmont with a passion for running who completed a 50 mile run from Castro Valley to Skyline Boulevard in Oakland in 13 hours and 36 minutes on Saturday, Sep. 26.

Holliday has quite the athletic background; playing tennis in high school, coaching baseball, and competing in obstacle courses for many years. He has run in events before, but for his first 50 mile run, he wanted to prove to his friends that he could do it.

“I wanted to challenge myself,” Holliday said. “My friends have told me that I’m capable of running 50 miles, so I guess I wanted to prove to them that what they were telling me was [true], and I wanted to see if I could prove it to myself as well.”

Holliday recalled that the conditions were nearly perfect for running on the day of the event, and everything went as planned.

“It was the perfect race day,” Holliday said. “Every route went almost perfectly and according to plan, and most of the time it doesn’t happen like that. I kept my fluid intake at a perfect level.”

In preparation for the run, Holliday made sure that he had all the gear he needed, and mapped out a detailed plan for running the full 50 miles at a smooth pace.

“I made sure I had all my gear,” Holliday said. “And then I kind of had a pace plan based on how I wanted to finish at the different eight stations that I needed to get to. I started looking at the elevation profiles online to see what areas you need to go slower in and what areas you need to go faster in.”

Holliday went through three months of strenuous training in order to prepare for his run. He didn’t always have the time to train, but his dedication to the run showed when he made time by running very early in the morning.

“I made the time [to train],” Holliday said. “I did a mix of outdoor running and treadmill running, a lot of long runs on the weekends, and then short runs on the treadmill. I was getting my treadmill running in at, like, 4:30 in the morning.”

Holliday’s training schedule made it tough to balance work, family life, and his preparation at times, but his family was very supportive and understanding.

“It was a struggle at times getting the training in and making sure I was balancing the family life,” Holliday said. “Without a supportive family, it would have been impossible.”

Although Holliday ran for just over 13 and a half hours, he said that the time went by relatively quickly, and he had time to enjoy the scenery and the environment.

“It actually went by pretty fast,” Holliday said. “Enjoying the scenery and taking some selfies on different parts of the trail. It didn’t feel like 13 and a half hours. Once I got to mile 40, then it was kind of like waiting to tick off those final miles, but the whole day went by pretty fast.”

Holliday is a very determined runner, and he has a personal motto of not backing down that he shares to fellow runners.

“DBALB: don’t be a little butt,” Holliday said. “That means don’t quit, don’t give up, tough it out. These are the kind of things that I pass along to my running friends.”

All in all, Holliday had a very enjoyable run on Saturday, and feels that all his training, planning, and hard work paid off.

“Everything worked that I had planned, which again doesn’t happen very often,” Holliday said. “I’m still floating in the clouds. I couldn’t ask for a better day with a better result.”