Dr. Ron celebrates 59th birthday with 60K ultramarathon

With nothing but the shoes on his feet, sheer will and determination—and some motivation and support from his daughter—Saipan International School headmaster Dr. Ron Snyder ran 60K before his 59th birthday at the Long Creek 60K ultramarathon last April 6 at First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

He ran the grueling, hilly, and hot race with a time of 9:55:05—finishing just five minutes before the race cutoff time of 10 hours. The ultramarathon course took runners through the historic first landing site of the Jamestown colony, looping through nearly all of the scenic trails. Snyder said they ran two 30-km loops, and it was the hardest run he’s ever done.

“It was so hard. The day we were supposed to do it was typically in the 60s, but it was 87 degrees, so it was very hot and very humid. [There were] a lot of DNFs [did not finish] during the race,” he recounted. “I had anticipated a flat course—that was what I was planning on because it was along the river and along the coast, but it was through this really hilly up and down area of the coast so over the 60 kilometers I had a 2,700 elevation gain as well which I was not expecting.”

When he got to the 18-mile mark, he had a bad cramp and thought about dropping out at just the 30-km mark, but he said his daughter, Anika, pushed him to finish it. “I don’t think I would have made it without her,” said Snyder.

His inspiration to run the ultramarathon stemmed from when he turned 50, he wanted to run either a 50-km or a 50- mile race, but he lived in a place where it was difficult to get to races. “I missed my opportunity at 50 and 60 was coming up, so I thought well okay I’ll do it then,” he said.

To top it off, Snyder is a streak runner—meaning he runs at least a mile every day. After his ultramarathon, he treated himself to a well-deserved massage and noted that his achilles were very swollen. But the very next day, he went for another run—a slow mile, at that.

He said streak running actually helped him prepare for this ultramarathon. He started his training for the ultramarathon a year ago and built up no more than 5% per week. “Streak running helped with the consistency of it. In terms of training, it’s a lot different obviously… that’s actually a consideration for the longer race running too. There’s a lot of rest days that you don’t get with streak running, so I just had to make sure I had planned that into the weekly mileage and planned in some slow miles for rest days,” he said.

When asked what the difference was between running the ultramarathon and streak running, he said, “a lot of people think that running is a solo sport, but my favorite parts of running are group events. They’re the Saturday races at Run Saipan or the group runs on Wednesdays—that’s really the part of running that I like, once you get to the point where you’re trained enough that you could talk to your friends and just have a good conversation.”

He started his streak-running journey on Dec. 28, 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and marked his four years of running every day on Dec. 27, 2024.