Fayetteville Couple Win The Syracuse Half Marathon

Husband and wives often run the same races together. 

Stephanie and Nicholas Ryan accomplished a rare feat at the recent Syracuse Half Marathon. Each of them won their division!!!

The champions were kind enough to answer our questions for this newsletter.

We will begin with Nicholas: 

- How long have you been running? I have been running since 2007 when I was in 7th grade. I ran cross country and track in middle school and high school for Fayetteville-Manlius and then continued my running career in cross country and track at Syracuse University. After graduating from ‘Cuse in 2017, I took a multi-year break from running and began again in October of 2021. 

- Did you meet through running? We did meet through running! We met while attending Syracuse University. Steph and I were both members of the Syracuse University Cross Country and Track program. We met back in 2014 and have been together ever since!

- Do you train together? We do! We run together almost every day. We do the vast majority of our base miles together. We both work as teachers for the Chittenango Central School District (Stephanie as a 2nd grade teacher and me as a secondary social studies teacher.) We do most of our running after work, generally at about 3:45 PM. We have been lucky enough to find other people who have schedules that permit them to meet up with us. We call our group the 345 run club due to our meeting time of 3:45. It’s really nice to have people to run with and it’s even better to be able to share your training with your life partner, it definitely makes getting out the door easier knowing that we will be training together!

- What is your go to training shoe? race day shoe? My most dependable workhorse shoe is the Nike Vomero (currently the Vomero 18.) I am also rotating through several Puma shoes at the moment because I am enjoying a brief Puma sponsorship in my lead-up to the Boston Marathon. My other daily trainer has been the Puma Deviate Nitro 4. For long-run workouts I have been wearing the Puma Deviate Nitro Elite 4. The Puma Fast-R Nitro Elite 3 has been my racing shoe and speed work shoe.

- Do you have any running superstitions? I do not have any running superstitions. My main goal on race day is to keep myself as relaxed and positive as possible. I always like to remind myself that running is primarily a physical sport as opposed to a mental battle. We can only run as fast as we have trained for. This keeps me relaxed on race day and committed to my training plan on the day to day. 

- Feel free to add any other information you would like to share with our readers. I feel super lucky to have been able to win the Syracuse Half Marathon on the same day as my wife Stephanie! We love participating in local competitions, especially running! The other competition that we have competed in for several years running is the annual pierogi eating competition at the Syracuse Polish Festival. Last year I was lucky enough to take home the individual championship with 23 pierogies in 3 minutes (Steph finished as the runner-up in the women’s competition.)

Now it is Stephanie's turn:

- How long have you been running? I have been running for 15 years. I started running when I joined my high school outdoor track team in New Jersey as a freshman. I then ran in college for Syracuse University. After graduating in 2018, I casually ran for fitness but in 2022 I decided to get back into racing.

- Did you meet through running? We did meet through running! We met when we were both athletes on the Syracuse University Cross Country and Track team. We began dating and have been together ever since.

- Do you train together? We train together everyday! Nick picks me up from work and we go straight to our run. We’ll do our steady runs and long runs together but will go our own paces for workouts. Most days we also have friends that join us for the run. We have a big group chat of local runners that we jokingly call 345 Run Club because we meet at 3:45. Nick sends out a text and whoever can join us that day will show up!

- What is your go to training shoe? race day shoe? My daily trainers are the Nike Vomeros. I just recently started racing in the Puma Fast R 3.

- Do you have any running superstitions? I always put my right running shoe on first, never the left. I’m not sure why, it just feels wrong to put the left one on first.