CEDAR CITY, Utah - Former Thunderbird student-athlete Hayden Hawks is making quite a name for himself in the world of Mountain Running, and will be representing Team USA this weekend at the 2016 World Mountain Running Championships in Sapareva Banya, Bulgaria.

Hawks wrapped up his career at Southern Utah in the spring after earning All-American status during the cross country season and completing his career at the NCAA West Regionals.

For those unfamiliar with mountain running, Hawks said it is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.

“It's as straightforward as it sounds,” he said. “You pretty much start at the bottom of a mountain and you run to the top. Most courses are going to be right around 10K distance and you'll have as much as 5,000 feet of elevation change in that distance, so you're gaining roughly five to seven hundred feet a mile.”

Growing up in St. George, Hawks said the landscape around him really helped mold him into a mountain runner.

“I did a lot of trail running when I was in high school, and I have always loved the trails,” he said. “I grew up next to the Red Mountain, and one thing I would always do in high school was run up the Red Mountain just for fun. I looked at it as a challenge.”

Hawks said during his college career he would seek out different places to present him with similar types of challenges.

After a full college career of cross country and track and field competition, Hawks said mountain running has been a little different of an atmosphere.

“It's different,” he said. “With mountain running, it's more based on how long you can suffer for. You're going to hurt no matter what, there is no happy medium where you're going fast but feeling good at the same time, mountain running hurts right from the start because you're going straight up hill right from the start.”  

When it comes to representing Team USA in Bulgaria, Hawks said he is beyond excited to have those three distinguished letters across his chest.

“My dad was in the military, all my grandparents were in the military, so we've always been very patriotic in my household,” he said. “To represent my country, to have the USA flag on my chest, it means a lot to me. I'm so grateful for everything that I get to do here in this country and all the freedoms that I have and to go up there and represent this country the best way I possibly can is a surreal feeling for me.”

Hawks has pulled in a handful of sponsorships to help him with his professional career, including one with Hoka One One which is a shoe and apparel company. It was his first place performance at the Speedgoat 50K that really put Hawks into the spotlight in the mountain running landscape, and led to his deal with Hoka which is allowing him to run professionally.

“I signed up the day before, wasn't expecting to do the 50K distance because I hadn't raced that distance before, but I ended up winning it,” he said. “That race is considered one of the hardest 50Ks in North America, if not the hardest. So to be able to win that really put me on the map and people started taking notice of what I was doing.”

“I did some high mileage at SUU,” he said. “Coach (Eric Houle) and I about a year ago talked about me jumping up my mileage and doing the same mileage Cam (Levins) was doing, upwards of 150 miles a week at some points, and I think that continual mileage build up over the years, getting that high mileage in and the coaching of coach Houle and the workouts that he gives helped prepare me to excel in the mountain running world.”