Climbs and Crossings

My training week consisted of a silent foggy Christmas morning run plus a handful of 5 and 6 mile runs. Nothing exciting to report. On Sunday, I finally got some trail time at the PCTR Woodside 17k. Yes, you read that correctly. Pacific Coast Trail Runs has been resurrected and is alive and well under new ownership! John and Maureen Brooks announced they were taking the reigns in August, and I think this post by John on the PCTR Facebook page sums up their vision:  It’s a dream come true for me to combine my work experience with my passion of endurance sports. I absolutely love the endurance community. Maybe some of you can relate to this: I really only race to be close to people like you. Endurance athletes are amazing people! We debated for weeks of whether to keep the name of PCTR or to rebuild from scratch. PCTR has a strong, 12-year legacy that was tarnished in the last 7 months before closing. One of the most important factors in retaining the name was reading the ye...

I'm sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket sipping a glass of pinot noir. Outside it's raining and the winds are gusting upwards of 40 mph making me glad I got my run in earlier this morning. About every 15 seconds I'm looking up from the laptop at the trees outside the windows waiting for something to happen. 4 years ago... Judging from the amount of time I'm spending staring out the windows, this post will likely take roughly 4 hours to compose. On with it. Monday was a rest day. Just work and a needed rest day. Tuesday after work I did a 4 mile tempo run and some core work. Wednesday I got in 5 miles before going to work in the evening to do inventory. Thursday I ran 4 miles after work racing the sunset. I've been feeling a cold coming on for a few days and I'm overdue because I generally get sick once a year. Everyone around me has been sick over the past couple of months. I interact with hundreds of people on a daily basis, but so far I...

By the time midnight rolled around on December 8th, 1,360 people had entered the lottery for the Way Too Cool 50k wanting one of 900 spots available...much better odds over last year when there were only 500 spots! Race lotteries generally turn me into a ball of anxiety because my life feels like it's hanging in suspended animation until I know for sure whether I'm in or out. Lucky for me, it was only about 24 hours until I'd learned I snagged an entry this year. Huzzah! My infiltration into the California trail running scene has come along pretty recently. I have a couple years under my belt and only one ultramarathon (barely). It amazes me that I live somewhere that almost any weekend of the year I can drive an hour or two and find a trail race. I could be flying down switchbacks smelling Eucalyptus or climbing endlessly up a mountain and look back over my shoulder at the Golden Gate Bridge. I can be wading across rivers and stomping through streams beneath enormous Red...