Death Valley I get asked often, why go to Death Valley in July, let alone run there? Some places leave indelible marks on our soul. Death Valley is one of those places for me. When I first experienced the 135 miles spanning Badwater Basin to Whitney Portal Road in 2015, the sheer expanse of the landscape captivated me. The steep…
Category: Ultra Running
Running Through Loss
Before my dad’s decline, I was planning to run the Keys 100 for my tenth time and training for my sixth go at Badwater 135 this July. Excitement, optimism, and commitment fueled my runs. Then, my dad fell and was taken away in an ambulance, and I rushed from the Keys 100 pre-race gathering with my crew, and drove four…
Long Haul 100 – “You Can Afford to Lose a Day or Two” – Billy Joel
Slow down you crazy childTake the phone off the hook and disappear for a whileIt’s alright, you can afford to lose a day or two…When will you realize… Vienna waits for you?- Billy Joel What I love about crazy-long races is that they enable me to fall apart again and again, in a contained period of time, and find ways…
When you lose your way -Ancient Oaks 100 Miler 2020
To say that 2020 has been difficult is putting it gently. This year has forced us to adapt and reinvent on a continuous basis, go deep within, find our reasons for being, strive for clarify as to what matters to us, push forward, and stay positive. Not too dissimilar from the sentiments ultrarunners confront when running 100 miles. So, in…
Keeping Going
“Quitting is not an option.” – Marshall Ulrich I flew to Florida to see my dad over Memorial Day weekend. It was a last minute decision, but with May 22nd marking the 9th anniversary of my mom’s passing, it was almost as if I could hear her say to me that Friday in her just do it spirit, “Go see…
RESET: Long Haul 100
After getting injured during running Daytona 100 in December 2019, I was clear: I needed to heal up and recover well, as I had big plans for 2020, and at this point in my life, feeling good and enjoying running is critical to me. I immersed myself in cross training, cut way back on the running, and was studious with…
Javelina Jundred 100 – Time & Place
In writing fiction, characters bloom at the intersection of time and place. Situate a character at the end of his or her rope, and what happens next is the story. The same holds true in large part for our lives, and perhaps in ultra-marathons, it’s the expedited version. The Sonoran Desert. Late October. Halloween looming. Costumed runners and crew all…
Risk and Reward: Tahoe 200
Pre-Race 24-hours before the start of Tahoe 200, a 205.5-mile endurance run that circumnavigates the magnificent and dazzlingly blue Lake Tahoe, by way of the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT), with occasional detours through aspen meadows, rock gardens, canopied forests, and ridge lines, I was petrified. It wasn’t the course and its substantial climbs and descents that frightened me by that…
ULTRA TRAINING: lessons in commitment, hard work, and daring greatly.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best…
Keys 100 – 2019: Reflections from a Movable Feast
Aside from being all things Hemingway, Key West is where I lived for a few years, it’s where I studied writing for many more years, it’s where I reflected for endless days and nights of my life and made some key decisions, and for the past eight years, it’s the destination that I have run to each May, during the…