He jogged every street in Olympia, they ran every street in Lacey. What did they learn?

They encountered interesting street names, unusual streets, well-lit neighborhoods, dark neighborhoods, learned some history and discovered places they never knew existed.

They also ran streets that were not pedestrian friendly — streets that city officials know need to change.

Who are they? Olympia resident Mathias Eichler and Thurston County residents Tom Nelson and Molly Pestinger, all of whom regularly run throughout the area. And between the three of them, they ran every street in Olympia and Lacey.

Eichler, who runs 30-50 miles per week, had learned of a runner who ran every street in San Francisco, and he decided to do the same in Olympia. In late 2018 and early 2019, he covered 311 miles in two months by running every other day, he said.

He acknowledged the city likely has changed since he’s run and he remains curious about that additional growth.

After Eichler shared his story at a Lacey Rotary meeting, he inspired Nelson and Pestinger to do the same in Lacey just recently.

Nelson and Pestinger, who were sometimes joined by as many as 10 other runners, completed running every street in Lacey on Oct. 24. It took 18 months, running just once a week between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., he said. Nelson believes they ran at least 345 miles.

Olympia

For Eichler, the runs became a micro-adventure, a chance to discover new neighborhoods and more. If you live in a rural area, such as Boston Harbor, you really have only two choices: running north or south. But for him, he suddenly had hundreds of routes he could choose from. It did require careful planning, however, because he could not simply run and wing it.

Both groups of runners tracked their runs and Eichler even wrote about it.

Did he run up steep West Bay Drive? Yes, he did. Did he run up Courthouse Hill on Lakeridge Drive from Deschutes Parkway? Yes, he did. That also led to one of his favorite discoveries as he then ran to Cooper Point Road and onto a street at the Olympia Auto Mall that came to a dead end for traffic, but turned into a trail for pedestrians to the west side.

Another interesting discovery was a new subdivision north of Grass Lake in west Olympia, he said. Although remote, new neighborhoods come with things pedestrians appreciate: new, wider sidewalks with typically more street lights than are found in the city’s older neighborhoods, Eichler said.

The South Capitol Neighborhood was a disappointment, he said, because it was dark, the sidewalks were narrow and the trees are old enough to have pushed up sidewalks, creating uneven surfaces.

There also has been a noticeable before-and-after effect since he ran every street. When he ran through Briggs Village, the mixed-use development off Henderson Boulevard near Yelm Highway, there was little of anything. Now, it has filled in with housing and commercial enterprises, although it still awaits a possible grocery store.

And Eichler found streets that were hostile to pedestrians.

Eichler ran the major streets near Providence St. Peter Hospital, such as Lilly Road and Sleater-Kinney Road, and just wanted to get it over with, he said. He acknowledged that he was in a commercial area.

“Nobody expects you to walk to Lowe’s,” he said.

Wiggins Road, which has no shoulder and heavy traffic, runs north and south between Yelm Highway and 27th Avenue. Eichler also treated that as a one and done experience, running in only one direction.

Whether there’s a long-term plan to widen Wiggins Road was not immediately clear, but Leonard Bauer, the city’s Community Planning and Development Director, said if there’s new development along any road, including Wiggins, it will result in frontage improvements, including new sidewalks.

Lacey

One of Nelson’s takeaways from the experience is that Lacey is a very suburban city, since the runners covered the city’s urban core in just a few runs. He said they spent more time running up and down the streets of Horizon Pointe and in Hawks Prairie, another area with many newer subdivisions.

From a pedestrian point of view, they, too, appreciated wider sidewalks and well-lit streets of newer areas, compared to the city’s older neighborhoods. Between Lacey Boulevard and the Brentwood neighborhood near Wonderwood Park, many streets have no sidewalks at all and are dark early in the morning or at night.

But they had character, Pestinger added about those older enclaves, saying all the homes look different, compared to newer neighborhoods where all the homes look alike.

“I feel like it’s grown in a positive way,” said Pestinger about Lacey. She thinks the city has been thoughtful about new housing and the new businesses and related road work needed to support those developments.

Nelson and Pestinger ran early in the morning, so they passed morning commuters, school children waiting for buses, and wildlife, including rabbits, deer and coyote. They were once stopped by police and asked if they had seen a suspect; they also passed homeless encampments off Martin Way, near the outdoors store Cabela’s and along the I-5 bike trail, Nelson said.

Eichler did not encounter as much homelessness as he would have today. However, Olympia and Lacey have taken steps to relocate people living in camps near Sleater-Kinney Road and Wheeler Avenue into housing through a state-funded rights-of-way program.

Nelson and Pestinger also encountered streets less than friendly to pedestrians.

“We tried to stay off College Street as much as possible,” said Nelson, referring to the major north-south thoroughfare with heavy traffic and narrow sections with narrow sidewalks. The city, though, is taking steps to widen it between Lacey Boulevard and 37th Avenue, and one section is already complete: 18th to about 24th with a new roundabout at 22nd Avenue.

Up next, the city has the funding to design a widened roadway between Lacey Boulevard and 18th, with a new roundabout at 16th. That will be followed by widening south of 24th with an additional roundabout at 29th, said Scott Egger, the city’s public works director.

The city expects to start acquiring right-of-way in 2024 with construction beginning in 2028, if the city is able to secure the funding for the work, he said.

Pestinger enjoyed seeing the home she lived in on Lebanon Street, as well as her father’s former home on Hall Street and her grandfather’s home at Capitol City Golf Club. She also learned that Lacey was once had a horse racing track not far from where the Lacey post office is today.

There are unusual streets — Spurline Road and Alhadeff Lane — because they don’t look like streets, but resemble parking lots. And in northeast Lacey, a number of streets have been named for long-ago celebrities like Loren, Hepburn and Astaire streets.

Nelson had one request: there need to be more directional signs around Wonderwood Park because he found the area confusing.

All three runners had to navigate a lot of cul-de-sacs, Pestinger said. For those residents who saw them running up and down the dead-ended roads, it must have looked very strange, she said, laughing.