This Month’s member spotlight focuses on Roy Lee Stutsman 

By Lou Slaces, running reporter 

       The last time that Ol’ Lou saw Roy Stutsman, he had just finished the Jingle Bell Run rather well, and he was carrying a rocking chair over his head down the alley between the Shrine and the McCurdy.  That rather unusual sight caused Lou to wonder a little bit about Roy, since Roy sure didn’t seem to need the rocking chair while he was running.   And after talking to him at that time, Lou has to admit that when it comes to Roy, he is stumped on several issues.  First of all, it is hard to say whether Roy is an “early bird” or a “night owl” runner because ( and I am not making this up) Roy runs every other “day”(?, I guess) at 2:00 in the morning.  That’s right, 2:00 a.m.  I think technically he must be an early bird, since he tells me he goes to bed at 9:00 p.m., so I guess he is awakening and running before he does the rest of his day’s work.  His work, by the way,  was as a wood worker for 43 years at Swiss Plywood and continues today in that same line-- which kind of explains the rocking chair he was delivering to a customer when I saw him.

            But Roy has a lot of other mysteries as well.  It is probably a mystery why his wife Brenda and daughter have put up with 2:00a.m. running, Roy says.  And when I asked him why and how he started running, he said even he wasn’t sure.  He had lost some weight back in 1992, and was down in Florida on vacation when he just thought it would be fun to run on the beach.  He did that a couple of days and when he returned to Tell City –where he was born, raised and has spent all of his now 64 years – he noticed that the Schweitzer fest run was coming up in two weeks.   He ran in that race, and has been hooked on the sport ever since.  He says that he didn’t really have any runners in his family or any running mentors.  He just found that he enjoyed running.  His usual run is in the 6 mile range, so he is a 20-25 mile per week kind of guy.

            There is one thing that is not a mystery about Roy.  He always runs by himself-  for reasons that Ol’ Lou finds obvious.  But that also ties into why he is a club member.  He likes the newsletter to keep him up with people and to make sure he knows when the races are. Roy says he really enjoys the races that he goes to, and enjoys talking to the people at the races.  For this reason he is a member of the Owensboro Running club, too. 

            Roy’s tip to us all is this – just listen to your body and let it tell you how to run.  If you feel good, run a little harder than normal.  If you feel bad, run a little slower.  If you want to keep going like Roy has for 13 years now,  he says you just have to focus on enjoying the feeling, and all those endorphins we somehow pick up as we go-  don’t try to make it a “workout”. 

            Roy’s best short joke:  Two fish in Tell City swam into the concrete wall in the river at Cannelton. One turns to the other and says “Dam”.