Jared Reynolds (second from left), after leaving the starting line of Race Judicata last week. He won the 3.1-mile race with a time of 16:15. For more photos from the race, see our gallery.
Jared Reynolds (second from left), after leaving the starting line of Race Judicata last week. He won the 3.1-mile race with a time of 16:15. For more photos from the race, see our gallery. — Chandler West

Want to win the 2015 Race Judicata? Here’s what you’ll have to do to beat reigning champion Jared Reynolds, a third-year student at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law who, as of today, is registered for the 2015 Boston Marathon.

1. Run the Chicago Marathon in less than three hours. In 2013, Reynolds finished in 2:55:47, good for 589th place out of nearly 39,000 runners. That will get you off to a good start for the year ahead.

2. Run a minimum of 6 miles each day. Do it by 6:30 a.m. so you have time for work, like completing your third year in law school and working in IIT Chicago-Kent’s criminal law clinic and at the Cook County public defender’s office.

3. Join a racing team that runs twice a week, like Reynolds’ Fleet Feet Chicago team.

4. Run 45 to 60 miles per week with a combination of speed workouts and long-distance runs.

5. If, like Reynolds, you’re training for the Chicago Marathon coming six weeks after Race Judicata, start your training in the first week of June.

Begin your week on Sunday with your long run — a quarter of your weekly miles. Reynolds starts his long run at 12 miles and adds a mile every two weeks. By the time he got to Race Judicata, Reynolds was at 20 miles.

6. Run a 5-kilometer race in May. Run a half-marathon in June with a mile pace time of 6:08. Run another 5K and then a 10K in June, followed by Chicago’s Bastille Day 8K race in July. Win the 8K. Beat your goal time by 40 seconds.

7. Take a day off every two weeks.

8. Let nothing disrupt your training schedule. If, for example, you attend the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in mid-June, find the 5K the festival is hosting. Run the 5K. Finish fifth.

Or if, say, you travel through Europe for five weeks in July and August with IIT Chicago-Kent’s moot court team, make sure you run in all five countries you visit, including 14 of your 15 days in Scotland.

9. On the morning of Race Judicata, run 4 miles. Then run 2 miles before the race and another half-mile after the race, for a total of 9.5 miles for the day.

10. Develop tricks for knowing the location of your closest followers without having to turn around.

If you can hear them breathing, for instance, you will know both their location and their level of fatigue.

Or monitor the time between when the crowd cheers for you and when they cheer for the nearest runners behind you.

Or monitor your shadow and the shadows of runners behind you. If you don’t see their shadows, you know you’ve got a good lead.

11. If you’re so fast that you’re approaching the finish line when the race’s walkers are just starting, you might need to shout for them to move or perhaps run under some tree branches. Don’t get flustered. You’re just really fast.

12. Finish the 3.1-mile race better than 16:15, or a 5:15 mile pace.

Do all that, you can hang with Reynolds.

And if you can do it after having the big bone in both of your unusually wide feet broken and molded together due to bunions, even better.

“I’ve always had really wide feet, so it was difficult when it came to racing to find correct shoes that would fit my feet perfectly,” said Reynolds, who is 6-foot-3 and wears a size 11.5 shoe.

Running shoes measure width with letters. Most men wear a D. Men with wide feet wear an E. Rare are the runners with EE.

Reynolds wears EEEE.

“I always felt that my feet were holding me back a little bit,” he said.

He combats this with “extravagant tape jobs” on his feet to prevent blisters.

“By the end of any season, my shoes have holes on the sides from my feet jutting out,” he said.

The problem got so bad during his final year on the track team at the State University of New York at Oneonta that he had to end his season early.

“My times weren’t anywhere near where they should have been,” said Reynolds, whose personal-best mile time is 4 minutes, 25 seconds.

He had surgery on his left foot a few days after graduation. Four weeks later, he had the same surgery on his right foot.

“My feet still get blisters occasionally,” he said, “but I don’t have the consistent throbbing pain that was never-ending before.”

After graduating in 2012, he arrived in Chicago for law school and, per doctor’s orders, didn’t run again until Sept. 1. In the spring, he joined the Fleet Feet team and set his sights for Race Judicata.

“You could tell from the look in his eyes that he wanted to win it,” Fleet Feet teammate Nate Wolack said. “He specifically told me, ‘Nate, I want to win this race.’ ”

Reynolds valued the race for the camaraderie, competition and the mixing of his worlds — running and the law.

As his legal responsibilities increase, he finds ways to tailor his running schedule to his legal schedule. He often runs before 5 a.m. and stands for his entire 90-minute CTA commute from his Lakeview apartment to the Leighton Criminal Courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue so that his legs remain active.

“I see him being very disciplined in the work we do and how he prepares for trials,” said Robyn M. Haynes, an assistant public defender for 11 years. “He seems to have that same focus and discipline that he appears to have in his running.”

Haynes saw Reynolds’ passion for running when she asked if he thought he could commute faster via running than via train.

“How fast are you?” Haynes asked him. “Do you think you could run here faster?”

He brought his suit and briefcase to work on a Thursday and ran to work on a Friday, cutting 30 minutes off his commute. The only problem was the sweating.

“It’s 26th and California. We don’t have showers or a gym,” Haynes said. “Otherwise, I think he would do it every day.”