His Natural State hikes reeled him in from LA
Pete Ireland chose the more languid pace and natural beauty of Arkansas over that of his native Los Angeles years ago, and he has yet to run short of the urge to see it.
At 80, Ireland has run more than 130 Arkansas Ultra Trail Series and other races sponsored by the Arkansas Ultra Running Association.
“I would guess I have done about 70 ultramarathons ranging from 50K to 100 miles, plus a half-dozen multi-day races,” says Ireland, adding that he has mostly retired from racing. “My last ultra, other than a couple of multi-day races, was a 50-miler in late 2018.”
Trail races offer a variety of terrain, camaraderie and a low-key atmosphere, he says.
“It was just enjoyable to get out
there and in nature and see different areas,” says Ireland, who has simply adopted a more relaxed pace to enjoy the view. “I still do a good bit of hiking. I was backpacking on the Ouachita Trail for three days last week.”
Ireland graduated from West Hollywood High School in Los Angeles and joined the U.S. Army. He was stationed in Georgia and he worked in counterintelligence, performing background investigations for security clearances and security checks on military installations.
He was later a personnel management intern at the VA Medical Center in Atlanta, and then he continued that work in Biloxi, Miss. A promotion brought him to Little Rock, where he worked in human resources management at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Health System until retiring in 2002.
While living in Mississippi, he floated the Buffalo River with a friend.
“After an overnight trip in that beautiful country I thought, ‘Well, now here’s an opening and it sounds like a good possibility,’” he says.
Ireland started running while he was in the Army but dropped the habit as other obligations got in the way.
As he approached 40, though, he picked up the pace again, attempting to stay in shape so he could continue other activities, like canoeing, hiking and fishing.
“A lot of folks, they start getting into their 40s and 50s and they aren’t able to do all that much, and I wanted to be able to keep doing those things, to keep my body able to keep moving,” he says. “It was a means to an end, and it ultimately became an end in itself.”
What began with some 10K races and moved up to 20K led Ireland to his first marathon.
“At some point, I got involved with Charlie Peyton’s trail series races and began to do some longer trail races,” he says. “I like trail racing better than road racing. Ultimately, it was just the opportunity to run longer and eventually evolved into doing several 100 mile races.”
He finished his first 100 mile race at 55.
“When I say run 100 miles, for me, a back of the pack type of guy at that distance, why, it’s a lot of walking at that distance. It was basically the challenge,” he says. “Somebody that I know, many years ago completed a 100-mile race and I thought, ‘My gosh, if he
can do it, I can do it.’”
Ireland was inducted into the Saline County Striders Hall of Fame in 2014. He was secretary-treasurer of that group from 1993 to 1996 and again from 2005 to 2015. He has been the Strider newsletter editor since 1994.
From his home in Benton
he can get to most of the places he likes to go within a few hours.
“If you live in a place like Los Angeles, it can take you an hour or an hour and a half to get to the other side of town,” he says. “I don’t think you could pay me to go back to Los Angeles.”
About 60 years ago, he watched bumper to bumper traffic from the hills above the freeway leading into downtown Los Angeles.
“It’s been a few years since I’ve been out there, but they’ve added more roads; there are more cars,” he says. “That was a lovely area to grow up in 8 or 10 million people ago, not so much now. Things have grown a lot in a lot of places and we see a lot of adverse effects from the population.”
While he’s not a fan of how much more crowded some areas of the world are these days, he does appreciate how much easier communication has become.
His daughter, Heather Hinz, lives in Eugene, Ore., with her husband and two children, and he does his best to keep in touch.
“When I was growing up, communication over any great distance was either by letter or by long-distance telephone calls, which could be expensive and often of poor quality,” he says. “There were, of course, newspapers and nightly news programs on radio and TV, but most were 15-minute broadcasts; newsreels with major national or international news stories were shown in movie theaters prior to the movies. Now, people can call almost anywhere, anytime with good quality sound, and with cellphones, usually with no additional charge for long-distance calls within the country.”
If you know an interesting story about an Arkansan 70 and older, please call (501) 425-7228 or email: