How long would it take to run every street in Wichita? Local runner now knows after being first

The most challenging part about running every square inch of Wichita? Loose dogs.

Jason Niblack was chased by dozens of them, cornered multiple times, even had a driver cut in between him and a pack of aggressive dogs. He eventually started carrying pepper spray but never had to use it.

The 48-year-old software engineering manager at NetApp also had a couple of interesting encounters with police en route to running Wichita’s 3,886 streets over 596 runs.

He finished the feat Easter morning after a few years of what he called obsessive running once he found out about how to track running on every street in the city. It led him to see many hidden gems in the city he spent his whole life in, but also showed him stark lifestyle differences among people who live just blocks away from one another.

Niblack, who started running in his 30s after realizing how unhealthy he was during a boot camp put on by a coworker, is the only person known to have run every inch of Wichita.

“I think it says something for his discipline and motivation to have been the first to complete this,” Run Wichita Running Club president Karlee Rose said in a message. “I know of others that have been at it a little bit longer. It is something that takes extra time and definitely extra effort. It’s impressive for anyone, but us daily runners are especially proud and excited for Jason.”

He was introduced to the website he used to track his progress, citystrides.com, by a friend and running partner, Lacy Hansen, who is the second closest to running Wichita. She is around 72% finished.

In spring 2021, she asked him one day to run a different route with her, using the website. He was hooked on the idea of running all over the city.

“If you’re going on a 5- or 6-mile run, it just kind of went faster, versus, ‘There is that same house I see every morning, I know exactly how far I have to go,’” he said. “A lot of running is mental and this kind of took my mind to a new place where I was looking at new houses, new things, and just observing my surroundings and the miles would just kind of fall off.”

He said there are around 250 people on the website trying to finish running all of Wichita.

“I was way behind everybody when I started,” he said. “I got a little bit OCD on it. I literally, every single day that I was running, I was running somewhere else. Most people commit one run a week (to a new run).”

He started the effort around summer 2021, just after being introduced to the website.

The website says he clocked 3,617 miles to run all of Wichita, but some of that was miles he logged before he started the concerted effort to cover every road.

He figured it was between 2,500-2,700 miles to run each street, because sometimes he would run a street twice to get to one he hadn’t been on before.

On the low end, that means he ran an average of at least two miles of Wichita streets a day for three years to complete the feat.

It’s extra impressive for someone who couldn’t run a half-mile when he first propelled himself into the sport.

‘I think … I must be a runner’

A coworker and veteran at NetApp put on a boot camp.

“There was a guy who was about to retire,” he said. “I was about to puke in the parking lot and this old guy was running past me. I just decided that wasn’t acceptable. I had little kids and started thinking about, ‘How am I going to be able to run around and keep up with these kids if i don’t get in better shape?’ So that was (what) kind of did it initially.”

He jumped right in.

He did a New Year’s Eve 5K in El Dorado that involved chugging a beer every quarter of a mile. He did a half-marathon in Wichita that spring.

While training for those 13.1 miles on a icy run early one morning, Niblack said to himself:

“I think … I must be a runner.”

He’s run several half and full marathons since then, acted as a pacer at others, but then backed off racing as much while he focused on the goal of running all of Wichita.

It led him to some interesting scenarios and seeing people from Wichita Northeast High School, from which he graduated in 1994.

Running the city

A couple of those runs led to police encounters: Once near 31st and Meridian, when police were raiding a home and Niblack realized he shouldn’t be running where he was; and another when he parked at a bank near Wesley Medical Center to go on a run.

Bank employees arrived before he got back and called the police about what they thought was a suspicious truck in the parking lot. Niblack arrived back and found police around his truck.

He’s also heard people from high school who he hadn’t seen in years yell out his name to stop him. They’d ask if he lived in their neighborhood because he was running there. He’d tell them he was just trying to run all of Wichita, which usually left people “kinda shocked or (wondering) why,” he said.

But the biggest concern was always dogs on the lose.

Sometimes, it would be a friendly little dog just meandering from home. But many times they weren’t friendly.

One of the worst encounters was about a year ago near 21st and Arkansas. A Rottweiler and two other aggressive dogs were chasing him. A driver cut in between them so he could get away.

“People asked me about running through certain neighborhoods. I never … felt unsafe because of people, just dogs. Dogs were the biggest challenge for me,” he said. “And it wasn’t always in a neighborhood you would think.”

The routes also took him on a country road about 30 miles outside Wichita, near Viola, where the city annexed land that the Wichita Police Department uses, he said.

Partway through the journey, a friend asked him where he would finish his run. He hadn’t thought about it until then, but then decided on a route that would go through downtown and end at Intrust Bank Arena.

A couple of friends ran part of the route with him. His family was also waiting for him at the end.

“It was fun,” he said. “I definitely saw some things, even though I was born and raised in Wichita, saw parts of the city I’d never seen. There were definitely some very nice areas in town, little hidden-gem areas. And there were also some areas that were like, ‘Whoa, didn’t know that was around here either.’ … It’s shocking sometimes how different, from just a couple blocks away … the quality of house can be.

“You’re running along and you’re in the upper middle-class neighborhood and just a few more blocks away they may not have any kind of central heat and air and windows are open with fans in the window in the summertime trying to keep the houses cool. It was kind of shocking the differences in a close place.”