Belmont’s running man, Jon VanHorn

Since moving to the Bay Area a decade ago, the Belmont resident has taken up running as a way to get into shape and is now a seasoned marathon and ultra-marathon runner. Earlier this spring, VanHorn decided to run every street in the city of Belmont. In 15 running sessions over 21 days, VanHorn covered 125 miles and 10,000 feet of elevation change — that’s higher than Mount Diablo in the East Bay and the South Bay’s Mount Hamilton, combined.

“There are a lot of parts of Belmont I’ve never seen before,” VanHorn said.

An Indiana native, VanHorn had gained weight while attending Purdue University and, when he came to the Bay Area 10 years ago to work at NASA, he was tipping the scales at 285 pounds. He knew he needed to lose some weight, so he started running.

“(I knew I had to lose weight) when my extra-large shirts started getting tight on me,” said VanHorn, 34.

Now at a trim 215 pounds, VanHorn, a Belmont resident the last three years, has caught the running bug. After only a few months into his running regime in 2013, he signed up to run a half marathon in 2014. A year later, in 2015, he ran his first marathon.

At the same time, VanHorn became enamored with trail running, which is akin to cross country running.

“Trail running, it’s a lot more interesting,” VanHorn said. “A lot more to see and a lot more engaging.”

As a part of the trail-running scene, he started hearing about ultra-marathons — which is any race longer than the 26.2 miles of a marathon. In 2016, he ran his first ultra-marathon, a 50-kilometer race. The following year, he ran his first 50-mile race. For 2020, VanHorn set his sights on running a 100K race, or 62 miles.

Those plans, however, were waylaid by the pandemic as the race he was pointing to, along with the prep races before it, were all canceled. The virus also affected his running, in general, as the deluge of people at his favorite running spots made him uncomfortable with the lack of social distancing and lack of general knowledge about the virus itself.

Suddenly, he went from running five days a week, averaging 50-60 miles,to about 30 miles a week.

“All the stores were closing. All the malls were closing. People started going to the one thing open — outside,” VanHorn said.

He started to transition back to road running when he came up with a new goal: to run all the streets in the city of Belmont. He got the idea from Rickey Gates, who over a six-week period in 2018, ran every street in San Francisco, totaling more than 1,300 miles. VanHorn had become acquainted with the city of Belmont as one of the lead runners for the Belmont runners club and decided he needed a goal toward which to work.

“I was kind of down about [all my races getting canceled]. I had no goal to work toward,” VanHorn said.

When he saw a post on social media about Gates’ run, his mind starting working and he set about planning his attack on the streets of Belmont. Through a combination of websites and apps, VanHorn would map out a route, trying to best maximize the most coverage in the least amount of running.

“Ultra runners are some of the laziest people you’ll know,” VanHorn said. “I definitely tried to break it up into chunks. … I’d have an idea in my head, ‘Let’s try to get eight or nine miles’ and lay that out (in a tracking app).

“(Mapping runs) was definitely one of the fun parts. It was a mental game. That’s part of the challenge — do all these cross streets and blocks and not having to backtrack.”

And while VanHorn knew there were some hills and climbs in Belmont, he never realized how much until he ran up and down them.

“Being a trail runner, it make Belmont a perfect place for me,” VanHorn said. “There were a lot of places that were challenging.”

VanHorn wrapped up his challenge in mid-May and initially took a break, “running that much on pavement is brutal,” and things got hectic at work. Now that things are normalizing and VanHorn back running consistently again, he is looking for a new challenge.

“Hey, San Carlos is next door,” VanHorn said. He actually has a couple runs under his belt in a quest to run the streets of San Carlos, but figures he’ll simply work that into part of his running routine, instead of focusing solely on that. He is out running on his favorite trails again as he said the crowds have died down and people seem to be more conscientious about mask wearing and social distancing.

But being a runner, VanHorn is always looking for his next goal.

“This voice in your head starts saying, ‘Hey, can you do that?’” VanHorn said. “I’ve never been one to do a crazy long-distance thing, but I’m eyeballing a couple of things.”