ultrarunning

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 week… Text from Jason: “Free Sat?” All I could find was this one race report from Erik Sanders: https://gearjunkie.com/colorado-ultra-mountain-race-niwots-challenge Prep for the Infinity Loop later this summer. Race details, what does it entail… I’m totally detached from how hard it might be. “It’s only 45 miles”, says Jenna. ...

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 at all. I ran this race in 2019 for the second time, finishing in 27 hours and 17 minutes with Matt Fackrell and Jason Antin, my long-time collaborator on such beauties as “The Rainier Infinity Loop!” and the quite absurd “Tahoe 200, 2018 edition”. We ran a good portion of the race with Todd Salzer; Todd guided us through the first two loops, but unfortunately didn’t finish the 2019 edition. I know he’ll be back in 2020, this year. ...

Welcome back to my report of the 2018 Tahoe 200. If you haven’t read Part 1 and care about background and context, go check it out and come on back. Otherwise enjoy the tale! Table of Contents Heavenly Aid Station (102) Heavenly (102) to Armstrong (117) Armstrong (117) to Housewife Hill (135) Housewife Hill (135) to Sierra at Tahoe (142) Sierra at Tahoe (142) to Wright’s Lake (161) Wright’s Lake (161) to Tell Creek (175) Tell Creek (175) to Loon Lake (182) Loon Lake (182) to Barker Pass (199) Barker Pass (199) to Finish (205) Conclusion Heavenly Aid Station (102) We slept for about two hours at Heavenly. I woke up drenched in sweat; Jason claims that I spoke to him in the night, but I remember nothing. Jason couldn’t fall asleep at all, and finally woke me up at the two hour mark to get our stuff together and head out. ...

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, the glorious Strava art I spent over 90 hours painting across the California landscape: And then my detailed account. Table of Contents Why? Pre-race in Tahoe Start to Stephen Jones (10.4) Stephen Jones (10.4) to Tahoe City (30) Tahoe City (30) to Brockway (50) Brockway (50) to Tunnel Creek (65) Tunnel Creek (65) to Spooner (82) Spooner (82) to Heavenly (102) Why? I’m going to describe why I ran the Tahoe 200, and the reasoning is going to sound unhinged. Ready? ...

In 2016, as part of my years-long quest to make it into the Hardrock 100, I signed up to race the IMTUF 100. IMTUF stands for “Idaho Mountain Trail Ultra Festival”, and I’ll admit that before the event, I found it difficult to tell people about the “I’m Tough” without apologizing for how lame it sounded and expanding the acronym. I’ve got no such issue now! This was the most beautiful trail race I’ve ever completed, absolutely world class in the scenery, the trails, and the overall quality of the event. ...

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. The line physically traces out a rather sloppy infinity sign by traveling over Mount Rainier, the most glaciated peak in the lower 48, 28 miles clockwise around its base on the Wonderland trail back to the start, over the mountain again and then counter-clockwise on the remaining 65 miles of the Wonderland trail. Knock all that out and you’ll have traveled over 130 miles and climbed around 47,000 vertical feet. ...

I want to expand on the last piece I wrote 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 force your ego to adapt, and that maintaining a flexible identity requires you to get good at setting goals. Goal-setting is hard, and an endurance race’s finish line is as good a goal as any to start with. ...

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 is one of the more honest and inspiring race reports I’ve read. Leadville is a brutal, high altitude 100 mile running race in Colorado. The race was Aaron’s first ultra-marathon DNF, or "Did Not Finish", out of dozens of ultras. You can tell from the post that the experience scared him: ...

It’s over! My first 100k is in the bag. I finished the 2015 Miwok 100k 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. The pace was much faster than the previous ultras I’ve done, all hundred milers. I spent this winter doing a bunch of ski mountaineering races, trudging up ski resorts and whipping my skinny skis down double black diamonds I had no business skiing on what’s basically my first season. All of those winter miles paid off with a huge boost in pace. Here’s the story. (And here’s the Strava if you want to skip the narrative.) ...

Oh my god, I can’t believe that this race is over! I’m sitting in my desk chair with a little blanket over me, knees wrecked, feeling like FDR. 26 hours and 15 minutes of mountain running, and a Strava page to prove it! Here are some pictures and tweets from the crazy day. Pre-Race Unlike Leadville, Wasatch requires an application. It’s one of the big, bad, fucked up hard races, with 25k feet of elevation gain to Leadville’s measly 15k. It’s got a reputation of being second to Hardrock in difficulty. ...