Sharon gets into the car, black technical race t-shirt, leggings and neon Asics, holding her iPhone armband in her hand. She reminds me of a younger version of me, had I been a runner when I was her age. “Good morning,” she says. Her Indian accent sounds like chimes. In the drive from the Marriott to Magnuson Park, I point out the University of Washington and Mount Rainier. I describe the race… Read More
I tipped my red Altra trail sneakers over the toilet bowl, watching small rocks and sand particles float to the bottom and settle on the white porcelain. This was sand from another time and another place; the Anza-Borrego Desert California Riding and Hiking Trail, an 8-mile single track rising 4,000 feet, which I’d climbed in miles 40 through 48 of the Badwater Salton Sea 13 days ago. I’d not run more than… Read More
It was nearly 10:30pm when the Uber dropped my brother off at his Hollywood home and continued the additional three-and-a-half miles to the Airbnb I was renting in Los Feliz during my visit. I scrolled Twitter for the first time in several hours, landing on Nike’s live Breaking2 broadcast, 90 minutes in progress. With five million worldwide, I spent the next 30 minutes watching elite Ethiopian runner, Eliud Kipchoge, attempt to break… Read More
I’m a little over half way done with my journey to run 40 races this year for my 40th birthday and, up until this point, was very focused on my two longest races of the year, the Black Canyon 100k and the Badwater Salton Sea. In preparing for those events, I was racing nearly every weekend, sometimes twice. At the same time, however, runners I’ve been sponsoring have been tearing up the… Read More
This is a story where I discover I’m consumed by a drive to do my personal best to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. And if that sounds like a positive trait, then I haven’t begun the story correctly. “This is not about you,” Race Director, Chris Kostman, told the room full of racers and their crews during Saturday afternoon’s pre-race briefing. Designed to allow the greatest number of runners to… Read More