KNOW YOUR BANDIT : TIM NAJAR
Age: 33
Hometown: Farmington Hills, MI
Day Job: Mechanical Engineer
1. When and why did you move to this area?
I moved here in Summer 2021 to work on my master’s degree at UMich, which I’ll be finally finishing this fall! It’s been a long grind of part-time class and full-time work.
2. Favorite Local Running Route?
Much to the dismay of pretty much every running friend of mine, I love a good loop I can zone out on, and my favorite is to run around the diag on central campus. It’s 1 mile, it’s flat (I’m trying to recover, not forge my legs in Ann Arbor hills), and I can duck into a campus building if I need to drop the kids off at the pool. What’s not to love?
3. What do you like about running and how has your relationship to the sport changed over the years?
Unlike many other aspects of life, running is one of the few things that feels fair. Career aspirations don’t realize in ways you hope, relationships fall apart for reasons outside of your control, you wake up with a disc herniation in your neck (do not recommend), but I know that if I put in the work in my training I will improve. Show up everyday, give it what you have, whatever that is, and do it again the next, over and over. Three years later you’re fast. Easy.
Now that my noobie gains are long gone, I’m learning to enjoy the process. I will have bad days. I won’t PR even on days I think I’m in shape for it. Aerobic fitness is built on the timescale of years, not months. I value recovery in ways that I hadn’t before. Most of all, community and friendship around this sport. What’s the point of celebrating a big race if the people you care about aren’t there to celebrate with you?
4. What is the wildest thing to happen to you while running?
Shoe coming untied 3 times in one run, not kidding. I’ve only been running for a few years, but I’ve ran a lot in that time, and my shoe has come untied on exactly one run. And on that run it happened 3 times. That either speaks to how good shoelace technology is, or to the ghosts messing with me that day.
5. Favorite workout?
Fast progressive long run with the boys at Speakeasy Sundays. There is something about running in a pack fast - not a word being spoken, gravel crackling under the barrage of foot strikes, the cascade of beeps from watches on the mile splits, it’s magical. Running is a very solo sport, but when you get to the end of that run there’s this feeling of we conquered this together.
6. What is your most memorable race experience?
2025 Dexter-Ann Arbor half marathon. It was a huge PR, all my friends were there to celebrate with me at the finish, and I was in the money (4th OA male!), which was a nice little bonus on an otherwise perfect day. Huge shoutout to the photographer at the finish line who caught the best race picture taken that day.
7. What are your short and long term running goals?
Short term I want to stay healthy, be consistent, and support my friends with their running goals by jumping into their workouts or pacing their long runs and what not. Long term I’d like to break 70 minutes in the half marathon, hopefully in 2026!
8. Who is in your dream blunt rotation / dinner party? (choose any three people, they must be alive)
My three teenage celebrity crushes - Natalie Portman, Evangeline Lilly, Hayley Williams. I would love to stammer and sweat my way through an evening with them.
9. What does your ideal Friday night look like?
Sitting on a couch with my closest friends cracking jokes and shooting it about life. No games, no movies, just good hangs.
10. Tell us one thing that most Bandits would be surprised to find out.
I’ve been to the Michigan NASCAR race a few years in a row now.
