Did anyone really look cool in middle school? I mean, besides the cool kids.

Middle School Cross Country. Wearing Umbros and a bad haircut circa 1993.

Somewhere around 12 years old is when I started telling people I wanted to run a marathon by the time I turned 30.

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New Year's One Day 12 Hour (Uh, 7 Hour) Race Report

Here's the idea: You pay actual money to run around in a circle for either 6, 12, or 24 hours. This is how you choose to spend your New Year's Eve. That's it. That's the course. Just keep turning right until midnight. Each time you complete a lap, you pass under the finish arch, that is never actually the finish line, and over a timing mat that tracks the number of laps you've done and displays it on a screen. This should actually say, "KEEP GOING FOR MORE HOURS" You're looking at the same people lap after lap. It's the Golden Gate Bridge over and over again. You're not actually getting anywhere. What is the point of what we are doing. That question is exactly why I love this race. Here are hundreds of people, lap after lap, living entirely inside their own heads for hours and hours, each with a different answer to that question. Last year I ran because I just wanted to find out if I could do it. I wan...

American River 50 2014: There can be no other title except MY FIRST 50 MILE RACE REPORT

This is a big deal. Without fail, there is somebody at every ultra I've run that I hear say, Oh, I'm not really trying for anything today, I'm just using this as a training run for my self supported run across Canada next month. I'll probably just cartwheel the whole thing. I heard this type of exchange on the bus on the way to the start. "It's only a 50 miler, so the heat shouldn't even be an issue." It's a good thing it was dark... The "it's only a 50 miler" comment snapped me out of the anxious mind chatter and got me refocused. The few weeks leading up to the race, any time it came up, GeNene would say to me, "This is a big deal." Then I started saying it, and understanding what it really meant. This is something that I used to talk about doing "someday". It seemed really far off. I believed I could do it, but it would happen to some distant future version of me. "This is a big deal" m...

Quicksilver 100k Race Report

There are things I was expecting to have to deal with during my first 100k race (blisters, pain, high highs and really low lows), and then there are things you just can't foresee (pack strap breaking 20 minutes in, starting my period at mile 44, getting Mmm Bop stuck in my head). Oh, and the RD saying something about how the day before a mountain lion had chased a guy on a bike. The 62 miles in front of me were brand new and completely unknown. I carried this with me with projected times of arrival so I didn't have to do any math. I kept my watch showing only the time because I didn't want to think about mileage. It was a no math/no mileage strategy. I warmed up in the first twelve miles enjoying the distraction of the dark and following the line of runners in front of me. The course took us on a few brief little loops and out and backs up and down hills, inside a mine, and around a cemetery surrounded by a white picket fence. Inside the mine, we had to ru...

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