By Clark Judge
(August 22, 2025) — Ben Sodergren just can’t stop running.
Earlier this week, the 28-year-old ran for the Regional School District 17 Board of Education and won easily. Now, he’s off to the races again, only this time taking his Brooks Ghost Max shoes with him as one of 145 entrants for the Killingworth Road Race on Saturday, August 23, 2025. While it’s Sodergren’s first Killingworth run, it’s not the first for his extended family. Father Eric and uncle Shawn have done it before. In fact, Shawn was one of the race’s two organizers until three years ago.
For Ben, however, this is something new. The Director at Killingworth Library since 2022, he started running about a year ago “mostly for my health,” he said. Then he decided to join the Run 169 Towns Society, a group of runners dedicated to completing a race in every town in Connecticut, and went from casual running to casual racing – with Killingworth the third box he’ll check.
“It seems like fun,” said Sodergren,
It is. Except for … well, there’s that hill. Ask anyone who’s completed the four-mile race before, and they know what you’re talking about. But Sodergren hasn’t, so he was a little vague about the route, mentioning how it started north on Route 81 from the Congregational Church, then took a right-hand turn on Wolf Hollow Road.
“But I don’t know exactly where it goes from there,” he said.
It turns right on Roast Meat Hill Road, takes a U-turn at the two-mile marker, then returns home on the same route — an out-and-back loop that was covered in a record 21:13 two years ago by Stephen Fengler. That’s the good news. The bad? That steep hill that catapults runners down to Roast Meat Hill Road must be climbed on the way back.
“I know,” said Sodergren. “I’ve been preparing for that by doing some hill training. I’m a little worried about going up Wolf Hollow. I know I’ll make it. I just don’t know if I’ll make it quickly.”
“You nervous?” he was asked.
He shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I don’t care about my time. I just want to do it.”
Photo by Clark Judge
