Tom Remkes:

You may have heard tales of the legend of Tom Remkes and his feats of strength in the San Juan and Wasatch mountains, but like the Bear Lake Monster, the birth of Paul Bunyan and fur-bearing trout, you just don’t know what stories are real and which fall into the realm of myth. Well, we at the Banyan Collective were able to get the ultra-running hero himself into a chair at Weber State’s downtown bookstore and we pressed him about his career as a mountain runner, husband, mechanical engineer, woodworker and community activist with his service to the AutoLiv Race for Life.

Although Tom prefers to live under the radar (no blog, Facebook or Twitter) and doesn’t volunteer any information about himself, we were able to validate his mythos at the Hardrock 100, HURT 100, Wasatch 100 and the Ogden Marathon. Tom also gave us the skinny on AutoLiv’s 24 year history with the Race for Life 5K where each year Tom and his team at AutoLiv are able to generate upwards of $24,000, benefiting local families in need as well as downtown Ogden’s shelter, The Lantern House. In fact, after you listen to Tom’s interview and have the insatiable need to shake his hand, Tom will be at the Ogden Striders tomorrow (August 13th) at 3:00pm to present checks to the 2014 beneficiaries of The Race for Life.

Tom is an amazing person with a very humble personality, we are honored to call him a friend and Ogden is a better place because of his achievements and service to the community – Thank You, Tom!

We hope you enjoy this episode of Mr. Goodyear’s Neighborhood, it’s one of our favorites.

PS – Fur-bearing trout are real, I’ve seen the hairy fish before in the streams of Colorado along with UFO’s and baby elephants.