Photo: Holland Striders include (from left) front: Dave Hulst, Steve Hulst and Jim Misiewicz; rear: David De Kruyter, Joe Cantwell and Brad Hinton.

Mix intervals on the track with miles on the roads to build speed on endurance. Train to race and race to place. Pass on a delight in the running life, along with a wisdom absorbed through thousands of miles, to younger fellows.

The maxims of the Holland Striders, an informal training club, evolved as a tacit understanding. No club secretary ever committed them to writing as a mission statement or code to live by. No club chairman ever asked a recruit to swear to uphold the values inherent in the maxims. Nobody ever held office in the club at all.

Individual members, fast-striding guys of all ages who leap at a chance to train with other fast-striding guys from miles around, think of the values in different ways and put them in different words.

The maxims shine in the background as the brotherhood goes through its paces. The values help build an unspoken bond as the fast-striding guys shoot e-mails every which way to arrange training runs. The code helps create an affinity allowing members to rate each other with wisecracks like, "So-and-So thinks he's one of the fastest racers in the state."

Runners everywhere will recognize the values. They employ a likeness in their own training.

Steve Hulst was there at the beginning of the Holland Striders 14 years ago, give or take a season or two. Hulst, who at 49 runs 5K races in the 17-minute range, said the group, then without a name, started with a core of five or six guys. It grew to more than 20, a figure that yo-yoed as members came and went.

Later the group got its informal name through a loose association with Steve Webster's Team Striders in Grandville.

"We welcome guys to come in," Hulst said. "The bigger the pack the more we love it."

The welcoming spirit is more than talk. Members reach out to worthy runners from Holland to Zeeland to Grand Haven to Grand Rapids, and especially to fast-striding youngsters.

Rob Veldman, a senior at Zeeland East High School, began training with the group at the invitation of a teammate, Hulst's son, Tad, after Veldman's sophomore season in track. Veldman, who at 17 runs a rare 10K, one each summer, in the 34-minute range, credits the Striders with giving him the impetus to gain speed.

"Since I've been running with them my training's gotten a lot more serious," he said. "They help me put in the miles."

Striders training, including regimes unique to the club, helped Veldman improve his best times in cross-country from 23:11 as a freshman to 16:24 as a senior.

Training

The group works out together four or five times a week. Hulst said they hit the roads early in the morning on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and take to the tracks early Wednesday evenings.

They call their workouts, devised by the group to meet members' purposes and goals, by descriptive, even fanciful, names.

The Tour of the Holland Tracks is a Striders trademark. Starting downtown, they run to a nearby track, do one or two one-mile intervals, run to a second track, do one or two one-mile intervals, and so forth until they've logged 10 to 15 miles and five or more intervals. Over the years the rotation has changed, but they've typically hit at least three of the Hope College, East Middle School, Holland High School and Holland Christian High School tracks.

Brad Hinton learned of the Tour after moving to Holland from Fremont in November 2005.

"I was told there was a group of really fast runners meeting at the Outpost," he said. "After I started working out with them I found out they don't wear their accomplishments on their sleeves."

Hinton, who at 30 runs a hilly 15K race early in the season in under an hour, said he gets camaraderie from the group and intensity from the intervals.

"These guys race fast and train fast," he said. "Now I'm in the hunt." Hulst, a teacher at Zeeland's New Groningen Elementary School, said on some Wednesdays the group replaces the Tour with the Camel Humps. A single loop around the Camel Humps course takes the fast- striding guys over four hills, three big and one small. By repeating the loop they climb eight hills in about five miles.

Tad Hulst, a sophomore at Calvin College, talked about the early- Saturday workout. Tad, who at 20 runs a collegiate 5K in the 15-minute range, said the Striders tend to start at an easy pace for a couple miles and pick it up over the last 10 or so.

"It always turns into a tempo run," he said. "Every time we say it's going to be an easy run it turns out to be a hard one. It's helped me a lot to run with the group."

With their fitness honed by intervals, tempo and social runs, the members excel in races. Hulst said they uniformly finish in the top 4 or 5 percent.

"I don't think the guys realize the caliber," he said.

Once in a while a Holland Strider gets an outright win.

Racing

A while back a new teacher took over a classroom next to Hulst's at New Groningen. His name was Matt Smith, and he would become a poster boy of the Holland Striders.

Raised in Flagstaff, Ariz., Smith, who at 32 runs Saugatuck's 15K Mt. Baldhead Challenge in the 50-minute range, grew up training at altitude under the scenic San Fransisco peaks. He stayed home to run for Northern Arizona University. His cross-country team finished second in the 1995 NCAA Division 1 nationals.

"We had an amazing group of guys. Most of us were Arizona boys," Smith said.

Smith interrupted a string of six Baldhead titles to return for induction in the NAU Hall of Fame in September 2005.

Given his background, Smith, now teaching at Zeeland's Woodbridge Elementary, knows about preparation. He said training with the Striders helps with his accountability and motivation. His fellows have been known to alternate running beside him through 26 quarter-mile repeats. He described the group's scenic dune run, about 10 miles over sand and hills beside Lake Michigan, as a fitness builder.

"It's a run that makes you strong," Smith said. He will need the fitness to live out his dream of making the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in 2008. To qualify he must post a 2:22 or better in any one of four marathons over the next two seasons. He was on pace at 20 miles in the 2003 Chicago Marathon, and finished in 2:23:48, a PR by three minutes. In July and August he will head back to his alma mater, which boasts the Center for High Altitude Training, to nudge himself toward his dream.

Striders' backing does nothing to hurt Smith's confidence that he'll succeed. "It's doable," he said.

Hulst, the Calvin sophomore, benefited from the can-do attitude as he flirted with the 15-minute barrier in the 5K with his team this spring. The Striders served as role models.

"There're some studs," he said. "It was nice training with them growing up. There's some experience there."

Veldman, the Zeeland senior, fed off the group as he focused on the 3200 meters as track season opened this spring. He wanted to lower his best time of 9:50.

"I hope to be in the 9:30s by the end of the year," he said. "I hope to finish in the top 10 in Division 2."

Passing the Baton

Steve Hulst takes pride in the Striders' record of coaxing teenagers toward college running careers. Veldman could be next in line. "He goes out on Saturday mornings and runs 12 miles with us like it's nothing," Hulst said.

Veldman looks to the group for advice if he's hurting. Because members know the racing courses and where the hills are, he looks to them for strategies in his rare summer 10Ks. He looks to the brotherhood for a social network.

"They give me people to run with, and it's easier to run with people than to run by yourself," he said.

Tad Hulst credited the group with playing a mentoring role for high- school runners from Zeeland, West Ottawa, Holland Christian and so forth. Pats on the back from the fast-striding guys, not to mention kicks in the pants for good measure, don't stop with graduation.

"It's been cool to have them come to some of my college meets," Tad said.

Fourth Dictum

As if paying a debt, two Holland Striders -- each using his own words, each without prompting -- spoke of an indispensable factor in the recreational running life: Cherish a wife or loved ones willing get behind an avocation that encourages chasing dreams. MR