Climbs and Crossings

Valparaiso, Indiana somewhere around 1996 or 97...could be 98: I'm in the car with Laur, maybe Trish, and Josh and his friend Valerie. We are probably on our way to Night Owl because our friends have a Ska band. Valerie is in the back, and I'm turned around to look at her while she starts talking about how she's been to California and all she wants to do is go back because it's the best place she's ever been. This is the first time I've ever heard of Santa Cruz, the first time I've heard someone talk about having been to California, and I'm trying to imagine everything she's describing while at the same time secretly wishing that someday I'll get to see the Pacific Ocean, too.  Clockwise from the top left in Indiana: Trish, me, Valerie, and Laur. In Indiana. INDIANA. I think about that moment in the car all those years ago and a bunch others like it when I'm experiencing something beautiful and amazing that I could never have ever im

Let's just get this out of the way: I got my first ever Did Not Finish last Saturday at Coastal's Cinderella trail run in the Oakland Hills. I don't like really like the idea of seeing DNF after my name, but maybe we can petition to officially change it to OMGWTFDNF. Takes a little of the sting off. Here's me walking to my doom, I mean the start.  It just wasn't my day. It was a series of unfortunate events. Almost ate it a few different times right off the bat due to some steep descents and gnarly footing On one of those times, my foot slid underneath me causing me to fling my arm out and catapult my phone out of the zipper pocket of my handheld into oblivion. Lucky for me, the girl behind me saw where it landed in the foliage.  Saw a girl get completely mowed over in front of me by one of the lead 10k runners that came barrelling up behind us on single track.  Saw a turkey. Pointed at it and said "heyyyy" with what was probably an idiotic s

  Less than a mile to the finish, having been stuck inside my own head for the past hour or so, covered in sweat and salt, wearing water logged shoes, willing my legs to just keep moving, I heard a woman's voice behind me.. "I'M TIRED!" I laughed. Hard.   "Me too!" I called back to her.  "Sorry," she answered, "I hope that didn't sound negative." In my opinion, when you get to the last mile of an ultra, you can say whatever you damn well please. Let's start with Auburn, The Endurance Capitol of the World. (I'm not making that up) It's about 15 minutes from the race start at the Cool Fire Station, and driving in, there was a buzz that only hundreds of out of town runners in every hotel and bar and restaurant can create. The man at the front desk of the hotel checking us in made small talk...about Western States. He talked about the ice machines...in case I wanted an ice bath after the race. Downtown was crawling w

Chapter 1 - RACE REPORT My 4:30am last Saturday and every Saturday.     8 hours of work later, I was shoving Gu and tape into my gear bag in a frenzy so that we could blow town and head for the ocean. Allison came with us because she's NEVER BEEN TO PACIFICA. I know, right? There was a slight detour to REI in San Francisco before we made our way down the coast to Rockaway Beach. I just started watching Lost and I'm on season 5 so I pretty much have a whole different perspective when looking out at the ocean. Shenanigans ensued during the evening. I've discovered Vine and took way too many videos, but I was in bed by ten...thirty...ish to be up in the morning for the 8am start of Coastal's Montara Mountain half marathon. The lot at the park filled early, so everyone coming in was directed to park along the streets- the neighborhood streets, like sleepy Sunday morning neighborhood streets. Streets with houses full of people that in no way expected to wa

I'm not sure what we all did at jury duty before Twitter... A couple weeks ago I sat in a room serving my civic duty with 200 people for three hours and was excused because the courts did not require my service. What I didn't know was that one or more of those 200 people was sharing their gross sick germs with me.  When my fever finally broke and my antibiotics were done, I had missed the trail marathon I was supposed to run and totally disrupted a key week in my training cycle, so naturally I panicked. Despite the fact that I hadn't really eaten anything let alone moved off the couch for 8 days, I thought it was important to get in a 20 miler, so yesterday GeNene and Allison and I took off for Lake Chabot! Ready to crush it.  I took off and went about seven miles out of the way, or as I like to think of it exploring and adventuring, before getting back to a trail I knew. My out of the way included lots of hills, a creek crossing, a parking lot with

On my way up to the turnaround point at the north peak of Montara Mountain, I looked up to see  Caitlin Smith  cruising back down. Well, there goes my chance for an age group win today, I thought. (that's a joke) Someone should hire me to write course descriptions.  Inside Trail celebrated its one year anniversary with a return to Pacifica, the site of their inaugural event. Last year I ran the half marathon distance, but this year my training for Way Too Cool called for an 18 miler. The past few trail races I've run have had a good amount of climbing, but for the most part, the entire second half has been downhill. I was super excited to challenge my legs to some late in the race uphill. (spoiler alert: legs were not super excited to accept the challenge) I'm very familiar and comfortable with the first loop up the mountain. It's the longest and highest climb, but it's also the first three miles of the race when everybody's legs are fresh and rarin