200 Miles of Faith: Dad Runs to Remember, Honor Teen Daughter Killed in Murder-Suicide

It took Stormy Kies 200 miles to earn a tattoo his daughter drew for him.

Sue and Stormy Kies lost their youngest of four children, Faith, in January. It was a true tragedy. Faith, 16, left their home in Woodstock with a boy whom authorities, at the time, referred to as a family friend, the Woodstock Independent reports. A couple days later, police officers showed up at Sue and Stormy's door to deliver the bad news. Faith had been killed in a murder-suicide near Phoenix on Jan. 16. The story made headlines, and needless to say, nothing has quite been the same for their family ever since.

“Faith was full of life, and she was loud,” said Kies with a laugh. “Our house is so much quieter without her here."

Stormy is a runner, and Faith was a budding artist. In October 2015, Stormy ran his first 100-mile race — The Hennepin Hundred, which starts in Sterling, Illinois. Faith was there, cheering him on at the aid stations.

When he completed the race, Stormy decided he would get a tattoo. And Faith designed one. But Stormy decided at the time to go with a slightly different design.

After her death, Stormy was going through some of her things and came upon Faith’s tattoo for him.

“I didn’t choose hers,” Kies said. He felt guilty, and also felt like he definitely needed to get that tattoo now. But he decided he needed to do something really big to earn it.

“I had to do something bigger than I had ever done before,” he said.

200 Miles

The idea of what that "big thing" would be came about over a simple conversation between runners earlier in the year.

Stormy belonged to a close-knit group of ultra runners, those who run further than the traditional marathon length, in the area. The MudRunners, a group originally organized by Michele Hartwig in 2010, ran together regularly and helped to organized distance races. Hartwig, in fact, was the race director for the Hennepin.

“There is a lot of camaraderie,” Hartwig said. “It’s a big goal to accomplish this kind of distance.”

Stormy credits this group of runners for helping him through his darkest days after Faith’s death. One friend in particular, Brandi Henry, helped break him from a funk by basically telling him in the weeks after Faith's death she would be picking him up and bringing him along to a race that coming weekend.

“I had gone from running every day, 10 to 15 miles a day, to just sitting around,” Kies said. He was in shock after Faith’s death, but after that first race, he started to get back into a routine of running and meeting his friends to run.

Among those friends was Hartwig. One day, Hartwig randomly said: “Wouldn’t it be cool if after finishing the 100-mile race someone turned around and then ran back to the start?”

Cool for some. Completely crazy for most. But Stormy latched onto that idea. And when he came across Faith’s tattoo, he decided that at this year’s Hennepin Hundred, he would, after finishing 100 miles, turn around and run back to the start. That’s right: 200 miles.

“It’s like a light bulb went off ... ‘that’s the challenge I am looking for,’” recalled Hartwig. “He wanted this to be what he did to earn the tattoo his daughter designed.”

So he started training. And for many of those training runs, MudRunners and running friends joined him.

Maybe it was the fresh air or being surrounded by great friends or the simple act of running, but all of these things combined help lift Stormy up and help him sort through the awful tragedy that was Faith’s death.

“When you run, you solve all the world’s problems,” Hartwig said with a laugh. “And if you want to learn something about someone, go for a run with them. People tend to let their guards down.”

At first, Hartwig said people were not sure what to say to Stormy. Everyone was heartbroken — many runners had gotten to know Faith as well over the years.

“When someone loses a child, the entire community mourns,” Hartwig said. “So he looked to everybody, and we looked to him for healing.”

Just days before Faith died, she volunteered at the Frozen Gnome 50-kilometer race in Crystal Lake. Hartwig recalls Faith spent the whole day helping runners and cheering on her dad.

“She was smiling and helping runners all day. She was young, and it’s typically an older crowd (who runs ultras),” Hartwig said. “It was really nice to be around her. And she was so proud of what Stormy was doing — you could just tell she had such pride and excitement for him.”

Following Faith’s death, Hartwig said Stormy has been open and honest about his feelings, and this has helped his friends as well.

“He’s been very open. If he’s not feeling well, he’ll tell you. But he tried to be positive all the time,” Hartwig said. “He’s been very open about his emotions, which has helped him a lot.”

Race Day

The Hennepin Hundred started on Oct. 1. After months of training, Stormy was as ready as he was going to be.

For those who have run any kind of distance, there are moments described as a “runner’s high” by some, where you have a sort of out-of-body experience. This is sort of what Stormy was hoping for during his 200 miles. That, perhaps, he would have some sort of vision — or something that would just come to him that would help him sort through the past year and the loss of Faith and just show him how to go on.

“Maybe, I’d get lucky and I would have a hallucination where I’d see Faith and she’d tell me everything would be alright,” Kies said. “I never had a vision.”

Something else happened. While the first 100 miles of the race is on an official route, the second part was not. The first 100 miles took him 26 hours to complete. The last took him 46 hours. His wife and daughter, Windy, were there to help, and dozens of friends and runners were also on hand. They had aid stations set up for Stormy every 5 miles. And there was also someone there with him, running 3- or 5-mile increments at all times. They broke the runs into "shifts” to make sure there was always someone with Stormy.

And during those runs — when Stormy was beyond physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted — his friends started to open up to him. He started to hear stories he never heard before, things that surprised him.

“I was hearing stories about everything that happened to people. They wanted to talk to me because something traumatic had gone on in their lives,” Kies said.

Maybe it was because Stormy had also been through something traumatic and they felt he could relate. Maybe it was the simple act of running where, as Michele mentioned earlier, people feel like they can “solve all of life’s problems.”

But Stormy took something really big from that.

“The point is we are all struggling. And as long as we can keep talking about these things, maybe we will find a way to make it better,” Kies said.

Also notable during the race, local runners from area running clubs stopped out to help. Stormy recounted on Facebook following his race one group in particular who was especially helpful:

Around the 150 mile mark - the bunion on my left foot (Yucky) - made my big toe feel like it was broken. My foot was so swollen - the bunion was rubbing on my shoe with every step One of the Yeti runners was there and saw how my foot would cause my whole leg to twitch. So he asked what my shoe size was and went to his club(my brain was not working well - and I guessed the wrong size - I said 11.5 when I am a 12.5 wide... But - that doesn't undo the kindness that happened next..the Yeti's went out and found 4 pairs of 11.5 shoes from their club members to try to help me. They also brought a plethora of other items they thought I could use for thatlast 50k push.

Also during the race, people living in the small towns the Hennepin Hundred passes through learned of Stormy's story and started putting up signs in their business windows and along roads where the race passed through that read, "Go Stormy!"

The last miles of the race were brutal for Stormy, Hartwig said.

“He was getting really tired. He was falling asleep while walking, but in those last 2 miles, he came back to life. Something came over him, and he began running really fast and it was hard of us to get ahead of him to finish,” Hartwig recalled, explaining that those running with him wanted to finish ahead of him so they could cheer him in. “He ran all the way in.”

In the weeks following the race, Stormy wrote up an emotional account of his race, which he shared with his Facebook friends and others in the ultra-running community:

Like most of you reading this - running makes me happy. I run with other ultra runners because they are the happiest and best people I have ever met. Being around them makes me feel better... it makes me happy. I am consistently impressed with how far runners will go for other runners. Driving long distances to crew or pace a friend, to volunteer at a race.. to sit all day when they could be doing work on their house or watching tv. No - not this group. They will spend their own money to buy special treats to serve at an aid station. Sit there all day and do all sorts of things that would make most normal people gag.. and they will smile while doing it.I guess - being with my fellow runners - I get my faith restored in humanity. People treat each other the way I would think they should treat each other all the time.

Stormy credits all the help from his friends and family for making it through the race and through this past year.

In the end - I didn't find some spiritual vision - but I did find Faith... and Love... from an amazing community! Thank you all for being my inspiration!

This video put together by Craig Lloyd and Matt Williams of Trail and Ultra Running captures some of the ups and downs and the joyous finish of that race. Lloyd and Williams interviewed Faith's family and friends who recounted memories of Faith. And it also touches further on Stormy's journey to earn his daughter's tattoo.

Stormy plans to get his tattoo soon. The drawing Faith did of Stormy's tattoo was a rough sketch so Stormy's son-in-law, Juan, who is an artist, is working to finish Faith's vision.

"She described it as a top-down view of a dragon — with a huge fireball shooting out — encircling the 100 miles," Stormy said. But, instead of 100 miles, this tattoo will have 200 miles inside the fireball and look something like this.

Once Juan has finished designing the tattoo, Stormy will get it put on his right calf to commemorate his 200-mile race and to honor his daughter.

Photo credit: Submitted