Maniac on Singletrack

I HAVE THREE TAKEAWAYS from last weekend’s Singletrack Maniac 50K: Never assume a water jug is full You never really know what you’re capable of until you do it Ultrarunners are the best f**king people on the planet. (I knew that already, so this race was just another confirmation.) There’s the TL;DR version. For those …

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Truth, or Trail Lore?

As a trail and ultra runner I've had my share of unusual experiences, and heard a bunch more, because we love to share our stories. And I suspect that we fall prey to Fisherman Syndrome - the temptation to stretch the story a little each time. The hills keep getting a little higher, the creeks …

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The Long and the Short of Running

A couple Januarys ago I had breakfast with my running coach, going over my planned race schedule. It would follow a pattern I’d established, of a target race in late May or June (100-miler or more), with shorter ultras in the spring to leapfrog up to it. So we mapped out a 50K and a …

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It’s Okay. No, Really, It’s Okay.

This running life can be funny. Two times recently I’ve had to be told, or tell myself, that something perfectly normal and reasonable is okay. As in, I was actually feeling guilty about something I had no business feeling guilty about. The Thursday after I got back from the Grandmaster Ultra 50, I went to …

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