“It’s our lifeblood,” Koerner says simply. Folks from San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland come for the theater, and spend money in the town’s restaurants, hotels, bed and breakfasts, and shops. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is based in Ashland, and is a huge driver for tourism. Ashland is only 10 miles from Medford, there’s 250,000 people in the valley, and there’s a university in Ashland too, for starters. The town’s population is just over 20,000, and Koerner helps me to understand how a running store could thrive in such a small town. Since 2006 Koerner has owned and operated Rogue Valley Runners, a running store in Ashland, Oregon. “Eff man, I’m sorry, I just got into the office, long morning.” If it was anybody else, I would’ve moved on, but Koerner is well known as a happy guy, and he’s easily forgiven. “Oh man, thanks, I was wiped out the other day and we were way back in the woods up the Elk River,” Hal Koerner blew me off once, and then a second time. This week’s “Catching Up With” is sponsored by the Trail Running Film Festival.

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