I feel like I'm never going to publish this damned thing... so here it is, in bullet point form. Maybe I'll tidy it up some day. Niwot's Challenge, a very fun race out in South Platte. Jason invited me to this damned thing last »

Well, I can honestly say, now, close to a year after the event, that I don't remember this event in the furious detail that characterizes my usual race reports. How lucky! We're not supposed to talk about the Niwot's Challenge [https://humanpotentialrunning.com/niwots-challenge/ »

Welcome back to my report of the 2018 Tahoe 200. If you haven't read Part 1 [https://www.samritchie.io/tahoe-200-2018-race-report/] and care about background and context, go check it out [https://www.samritchie.io/tahoe-200-2018-race-report/] and come on back. Otherwise enjoy the tale! Table of Contents * Heavenly »

I never suspected that 100 mile races would be a gateway drug for... 200 mile races, but here I am, polishing off my race report for the Tahoe 200. What went wrong in my past? Neglectful parents? A broken home? The answers lie buried somewhere in the following account. First, »

In September of 2017 I raced my first ever mountain bike race - the Vapor Trail 125, the hardest race I could find up in the mountains of Colorado. After four years of 100 mile running races I was well and truly burned out on the idea of spending my »

On June 8th I completed the Texas Water Safari, a 260 mile canoe race down in Texas that runs rivers from San Marcos to the Gulf of Mexico. My 4-man boat (filled by Jason Antin, Andrew Soles and Andrew Stephens) finished early Monday morning after 44 hours and 14 minutes »

In 2016, as part of my years-long quest to make it into the Hardrock 100 [http://hardrock100.com], I signed up to race the IMTUF 100 [http://imtuf100.com/]. IMTUF stands for "Idaho Mountain Trail Ultra Festival", and I'll admit that before the event, I found »

Earlier this month I attempted to complete the biggest endurance adventure of my life: the Rainier Infinity Loop, a project dreamed up by the late Chad Kellogg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Kellogg]. The line physically traces out a rather sloppy infinity sign by traveling over Mount Rainier, the »

I write software for fun and profit, and writing great software - like all creative work - requires long stretches of deep thought. I don't know where creative insights come from, but two things are clear to me about how to find them: 1. You can study and »

I want to expand on the last piece I wrote on courage and goals [http://www.samritchie.io/on-courage-and-goals/], and talk about some of the traps that endurance racing can set for athletes looking to push their limits. That piece makes the case that aggressive goals are important because they »

This post is about courage and failure, and how to think about success or failure when the objective is difficult. Aaron Steele's 2014 Leadville 100 race report [https://medium.com/@eightysteele/leadville-100-6f1cfdc47fa#.317q8inpt] is one of the more honest and inspiring race reports I've read. Leadville »

It's over! My first 100k is in the bag. I finished the 2015 Miwok 100k [http://miwok100k.com/site/] in 10 hrs and 12 minutes, good enough for 9th overall and 2nd place in my age group to a 23 year old crusher who took the overall win. »

This is my race report from the 2015 Jackson Hole skimo race, the second of two ski mountaineering races I completed this weekend. (Here's my report from yesterday's race at Grand Targhee.) Jackson was going to be bigger and badder than Targhee, no question. I knew »

Wow, I haven't gotten crushed that hard in a race in a long time. Just fully WHIPPED! Jenna and I drove out to Jackson yesterday for the "Wyoming Rando Roundup", my first real weekend of racing since I signed up for all of these races [https: »

This post is about some of the books related to endurance training and sports that have inspired me over the last couple of years. Training for endurance events changes you. At the beginning of a season, on my first long run, ten minutes in I feel anxiety creep in. How »