My husband Morgan turned 60 on Tuesday, and my brother David, 68 (we have a tradition of the two of them sharing birthday celebrations). I hosted a special dinner for them with some extended-family members and a handful of neighbors. Morgan didn’t want a big party. Instead, we gathered at a venue a mile from home, on a mesa top in a canvas tent, and had the award-winning local chef who cooks dinners there prepare a memorable meal.

I relaxed in the sunset’s alpenglow while experiencing the closeness of family and neighbors. You know you’re in good company when you laugh with the person across the table about the time you found one of their maggoty dying sheep in a barn nearly 50 years ago, while you were playing and exploring as a girl, and you ran and hollered at their family for help. Some of these relationships go way back, supplemented by newer friends around the table with whom we have shared experiences as wide ranging as strategizing to be joint plaintiffs in litigation and saddling up to herd one of the neighbor’s cows.

I was reminded for the umpteenth time that relationships are key to a joyful, healthy life, and gathering to share a meal is perhaps the best way to celebrate.

The only thing missing was our son Kyle, who could not get away from his work in Ojai, California, where he is in the thick of working with horses and students as a riding instructor and farrier at the start of a new school year. Since he couldn’t be there, he and I collaborated to get a cardboard cutout of him to surprise the others. Kyle in cardboard was a great addition.

My niece and daughter kicked off heartfelt toasts for my husband, and I momentarily panicked, realizing I hadn’t prepared any remarks. Then, thanks to the magic of Dropbox on my phone, I quickly searched and found my two-decade-old toast from his 40th birthday party. I didn’t quite remember what I had written, but I read it aloud—a story about when I was 20, about to graduate college and marry him, and realized he definitely was the one, all because of his car. Reading that toast, I felt the time warp of a long partnership, when you at once feel you’re both young, aspiring, and a bit naive, and at the same time bone-deep older, wiser, and a bit world-weary. I’ll paste in the toast below to give a window to my past.

Turning 60 definitely hits harder than turning 50, we both discussed and agreed. I still have 2.5 years until I face that milestone but, viewing my husband at my side and myself in the mirror, I see and feel the change. We’re shifting from midlife to senior, from parents to potential grandparents, from career oriented to retired. I’m resisting it more than he; I hang onto a more youthful appearance and physicality, whereas he’s content as is and has never shared my preoccupation with self-improvement, which is something I grudgingly admire about him. I realized, through writing my forthcoming memoir about our long-running relationship, that I ultimately want to be more like him even as I periodically try (unsuccessfully) to change him.

Here’s my toast from 2006, for his 40th birthday, which I reprised and still holds true.

I decided that what I wanted to do tonight is toast—or rather, pay tribute—to Morgan’s second true love: His first car. Because I believe that car has something to do with us being here tonight.

As many of you know, Morgan and I met when I was 13 and he became my boyfriend when I was 15, but it was the summer of ’85—the summer after his senior year in high school—when I believe we really fell in love and became inseparable, and a lot of it had to do with his ’69 Mustang.

It was a massive, loud Mustang that Morgan bought with his own money from a little old lady down the street. It started out white, but then he painted it black—himself— but that’s another story—and it had a V8 engine and more horsepower than even my dad’s 4-wheel-drive truck. It also had a brand-new CD player, which was a big deal in those days, and giant speakers that he had installed himself.

In the summer of ’85, when Morgan was 18 and I was 16, he would drive to my house at the East End of sleepy little Ojai and he would take me all over Los Angeles, up the coast to the Bay Area, and even across the desert to Colorado in this monster muscle car.

What added an element of risk to our road trip adventures—aside from the fact that our parents were inexplicably OK with us being on our own like that, and I still haven’t figured out why they trusted us together so much—is that this Mustang was constantly breaking down and falling apart. Pieces of its interior would fall off in my hand. But Morgan was like MacGyver, always able to fix it. He would reach back to the back seat, grab some black electrical tape or a canister of brake fluid, and he’d get under the hood and restart the car, and we would be on our way. That summer was so crazy and full of love that it stands out as the highlight of my adolescence.

Finally the day came, though, when we realized the ’69 Mustang would have to be put down, like a beloved old pet. It actually was on George’s 50th birthday, during our sophomore year at UC Santa Cruz, and we drove down to meet Ann and George in Monterey and the car died—literally would not start—at the entranceway to the Monterey Plaza Hotel. Morgan frantically fiddled with wires under the dash trying to restart his car, and then he helped the valet parkers push it out of the way of the Mercedes and BMWs. George looked on, not amused. But Morgan, to his credit, did get it restarted eventually, and it lasted long enough to drive back to Santa Cruz, but I think George took that opportunity to suggest that he get a car that was a little more practical.

So, fast forward to my 19th birthday. Morgan proposed to me that night and suggested we get married as soon as we graduated from college, and of course I said yes—I never had any doubt. Some of my friends said I was too young, and we were too old fashioned, and that it couldn’t last. But I new I had made the right choice, and I want to finish by telling you about the day when I knew for sure that Morgan was the person I wanted to be with on his 40th birthday and beyond.

And again, it has to do with the car.

We had been car shopping after that incident in Monterey. We had our eyes on a used 1985 Toyota Celica. It was in great shape, low mileage, very practical, reliable. A great deal.

Morgan went off to test drive and most likely buy the car, and for some reason I stayed behind in our little rental, which was near West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz. I said good-bye to the black ’69 Mustang and waited for him to drive back in a Toyota Celica.

And I will never forget what happened a few hours later: I was standing in the house and looked out when I heard a deep rumble of a V8 engine, which sounded familiar yet somewhat different from Morgan’s old car. The engine stopped, and I looked out and saw Morgan open the door and step out of a polished, pristine 1968 Mustang. He had gone out and replaced his first car with a classic ’68 Mustang that was all shiny chrome and the color of butterscotch.

I thought, who cares how many miles it has? Who cares that it has no air conditioning and we’re about to move to Sacramento? He looked so happy. I was so happy! It was unbelievable.

That day, Morgan, you gave me one of the best surprises ever. More importantly, I knew then and I have always known that you are a guy who follows your heart, who stays true to your character, and who is loyal to the things and the people you really love.

You showed me that you love imperfection, you love adventure, and you are willing to work on fixing things that are broken, and for that I love you and always will.

Related reading:

Sky-high running

A photographer who was at the Telluride Mountain Run a couple of weeks ago shared this video of me cresting the summit of Gold Hill, at the top of the See Forever ski run, as I competed and finished second in the event’s hill climb challenge (4.5 miles with 4000’ gain). I had fast-hiked most of the way up the super-steep slopes, but I was able to run that last stretch above 12,000 feet elevation.

I’m sharing it here not just to show the beauty of the San Juan Mountains, but also because this post is about aging, and this clip shows me acting strong and youthful regardless of age. I’ve written in the past year about falling apart at ultras while feeling my years in the form of deep fatigue and aches, but this video reminds me that I’m blessed to still have a high level of mobility and fitness, and it motivates me to maintain it.

Recommended posts from this past week

If you share deep anxiety about AI, especially with yesterday’s headlines of how it could lead to our extinction (WTF?!), I hope you’ll read this post by and join me in my ongoing boycott. AI plays no role in my creative process or productivity, nada, zip.

Brad Stulberg

New Research Shows Relying on Chat GPT is Dramatically Weakening Our Brains

A recent, first-of-a-kind study out of MIT shows that an over-reliance on tools like chatGPT leads to a massive decline in cognitive function. The results are important, and carry practical implications for all of us…

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3 days ago · 70 likes · 9 comments · Brad Stulberg

I follow for his posts on aging and midlife fitness. He shared a personal story last week that is a cautionary tale for something that could happen to any of us, so it’s important to recognize the symptoms.

Built to Move, Born to Heal: Notes on Midlife Fitness

The Day My Retina Tore... And What Having To Be Face Down All Day For 14 Days Teaches You

It started on a rainy Saturday in May. I was walking in New York City with my wonderful girlfriend when, all of a sudden, I noticed flashes of light off to the left side of my left eye. This was quickly followed by something I can only describe as a dancing purple worm drifting across my vision…

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9 days ago · 66 likes · 24 comments · Howard Luks MD

And lastly, a #proudmom note: My daughter, who is a handbag designer, recently got into hat making too. If you’d like to see how she made the black cowboy hat in the family photo above, check out her TikTok on how she made it.

Perhaps you’re expecting UTMB coverage here, but no. I may be an outlier with my deep ambivalence for the week of races based in Chamonix and the brand itself. On the one hand, I followed and appreciated the extensive coverage on Trail Runner, iRunFar, and UltraSignup’s Trailhead newsletter. I cheered for runners I know and follow, such as Telluride’s Lindsay Allison and the women of The Trail Network Podcast, who raced and met their goals. The podium finishers’ level of speed and the narrow gaps separating their times wow’ed me as much as any other fan.

On the other hand, I felt zero FOMO. I did not want to be on the scene in Chamonix, with all its brand activations and road-clogging clusters of runners on shakeouts, in part because I’m crowd-averse and sympathize with the locals whose town has been overrun.

I wrote in 2023 about why I won’t run UTMB/Ironman-branded races, and my view hasn’t changed. Thankfully, demand persists to support smaller, locally owned ultra events like the two I recently participated in and loved, the San Juan Softie and Telluride Mountain Run. More than ever, I choose to distance myself from the monopolistic growth, homogenization, and hype of the “by UTMB” brand and support community-based trail and ultra races that are uniquely shaped by the race director’s personality and values.

If you’re traveling and spending money to race UTMB events and gather their “stones” for lottery entry, hoping one day to run with throngs of others around Mont Blanc, I get it and respect that. It’s similar to the desire to run the Boston Marathon and Western States, to take part in the pinnacle of the sport. At this stage in life and running, however, I’m headed in the opposite direction, toward low-key and homegrown events (the exception being the lively large Javelina Jundred 100K, where I’ll run on Halloween because I’ve long been curious about that festival-like race in the desert, but you could argue that Javelina is more like Burning Man than UTMB).

Anyhow, let’s depart from criticism and travel from the mountains to the coast, where I spent last week visiting my daughter. Don’t miss the list below of special Southern California trail/ultra races I have run and recommend.

Postcard from LA

Last Thursday, I experienced a run that made me enthusiastic about Los Angeles with the kind of magnanimous vibe that the start line of the LA Marathon exudes when they blast “I Love LA.” (I ran the LA Marathon three times in the mid-2000s, before I became crowd averse.) It even restored some of my optimism.

I drove three miles from my daughter’s condo near Venice past the Sony Pictures studio to park near the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, aka the Culver City Stairs. I could’ve run there but did not want to navigate so many intersections with stoplights and freeway ramps.

I love how municipal stairs, climbing skyward in an urban version of a mountain, draw all kinds of people—of all ages, races and cultures, and fitness levels—to ascend and descend them not because we have to get somewhere, but because we innately share a desire to raise our heart rate, break a sweat, fatigue our legs, and see the views from the top. Because the stairway is fairly narrow, we share space elbow to elbow, silently or sometimes audibly encouraging each other with smiles, nods, and expressions like “right on.”

When I lived in the Bay Area, I frequently did laps on the Cleveland Cascade stairway next to Oakland’s Lake Merritt, and sometimes I crossed the bay for laps on the Lyon Street Steps in SF. I also frequently traversed the beloved Dipsea Trail in Marin that follows multiple stairways through the woods. Stairways promote the kind of high-knee, quick-stepping stride that translates to agility and power on trails.

Stairs, I’ve missed you. And I’ve missed being around a diversity of people in an urban environment. It takes leaving rural and predominantly white southwest Colorado to be reminded of how homogenous and quiet our neck of the woods is.

Oil wells used to cover the Baldwin Hills, and the country’s largest active urban oil field continues to operate right next to the area in Inglewood. You can see pumpjacks moving up and down on the hills nearby. At one point, developers considered cleaning up the Baldwin Hills for housing development.

Ultimately, however, the state purchased the denuded and damaged land about 20 years ago and turned it into a 57-acre park to promote natural habitat regrowth and recreational trails.

The scenic overlook and neighboring Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area make up part of the 13-mile Park to Playa Trail, which connects trail corridors and leads to the beach just south of Venice.

From the base of busy Jefferson Boulevard, you can hike or run up gently sloping switchbacks on a double-wide dirt path, or you can go straight up via the stairway. The steps, dating back only to 2009, are made from recycled concrete found on site. Each step is slightly different in height and spacing, which is both fun and maddening for climbing. It’s hard to get in a rhythm going up or down, but the variety captures your concentration.

As I huffed my way up the stairway, enlivened by people watching, I recalled a week I spent in South-Central LA in the spring of 1994 on a magazine reporting trip with fellow students from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. I was a few months shy of 25 and a brand-new runner then.

We went to Los Angeles to produce a special report on the Rebuild LA effort following the 1992 riots. I didn’t save my article from the trip, so I can’t really recall what I wrote, but I vividly remember driving by myself all around South-Central in a too-flashy rental car (a purple Mitsubishi Lancer), the only white woman around, and getting out of that car to talk to random residents and business owners. Everyone treated me respectfully, and no one threatened me. Maybe I just got lucky, or maybe it’s because I was disarmingly friendly and they were curious about me and appreciated the questions.

In any case, the burned and smashed-up business districts looked irreparably broken and segregated. I zeroed in on Rebuild LA’s ridiculous hype of Taco Bell’s construction of new outlets in the area, as if fast food were the answer to the riot-torn neighborhoods’ problems. I captured voices of frustration from many who said in so many ways that rebuilding for prosperity takes much more than commercial investment by corporations like Taco Bell.

Looking at the Baldwin Hills’ vegetation and trails while running stairs to the summit, I thought, this—this kind of investment in parks and recreation—makes a difference in neighborhoods and lives, and it brings people together. This is one good way to spend tax dollars.

At the top, I discovered an architectural gem of a new modern building that houses a visitor center dedicated to environmental education and the area’s history, so I paused my watch and went in to look. The first sign that I read resonated:

“Parks have been called ‘islands of hope’ in the sense that they are places of environmental quality that enhance the quality of human life. In principle and in practice, parks model a more harmonious way for timeless nature and modern culture to coexist. This is one such place. Here, a piece of land, previously exploited and abused, is being restored to its natural richness. After centuries of private ownership, this is now a public space.”

I continued along the path, passing murals and sculptures, and came upon the Stoneview Nature Center with botanical gardens and olive trees planted on the site of a decommissioned school. I detoured to look around it, walking rather than running to observe the details.

Then I eagerly headed to the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, which has a winding, hilly network of trails. The six-lane La Cienega Boulevard used to separate the two green spaces, but in 2020, a new pedestrian bridge connected them. Not merely utilitarian, it features a landscaped planter box along one side as if trying to emulate The High Line in NYC.

Running across the bridge, I was struck by the manifestation of something improving rather than worsening. In this era, it seems that most of us have grown to expect that public lands and infrastructure are neglected and deteriorating, and weak and gridlocked leadership won’t do anything about it. The public improvements that I witnessed reminded me that we collectively have the ability to restore and beautify degraded areas.

Once in the Hahn recreation area, I stopped playing tourist and shifted into a higher gear for a good hill workout, running up and down various trails. Underfoot, snake and gopher holes pockmarked the hard-packed dirt, and birds, bunnies, and lizards scampered around tangled vegetation. I dripped sweat from the region’s humidity, welcoming the dampness that I rarely feel in Colorado’s thin, dry air where sweat evaporates.

On summits, I could look west toward the ocean and view oil production competing with nature amongst the Inglewood Oil Field, or look east and view a sea of rooftops and buildings that make up Downtown and South-Central.

I repeated the same thing I used to say when I ran the Oakland-Berkeley Hills in between the urban stretch and the suburban sprawl: thank goodness for greenbelts. And thanks especially to the leaders and funders who had the foresight to set aside public space for nature and recreation.

I’m not naive; I know, looking at the expanse of Los Angeles, that urban blight is as bad as ever in some areas, and countless people struggle daily to live on the streets. At one point last week, as my daughter and I navigated toward a budget bridal shop downtown, I found myself in the decaying skid-row warehouse district where every sidewalk appeared to be a trash dump or someone’s makeshift bed.

These natural areas protected as parks, with trails for recreation and habitat for flora and fauna, offer an alternative and are open to all. They make us better individually and as a society.

Southern California trail races I’ve run and recommend

Being in LA also made me reminisce about trail races I’ve run around there. Several are put on by Keira Henninger; check out her full calendar of events and consider these for 2027:

Catalina Island Marathon: I ran this spring race 20 years ago, during my daughter’s eighth birthday when we traveled to Disneyland. Just off the coast of LA, accessible by ferry, it’s magical. The 49th running takes place March 13.

Leona Divide 100K (with distances ranging from 30K - 100M): On the outskirts of LA County, taking place in mid-April when the grass is green, its 100K and 100M are Western States qualifiers. I loved this race when I ran it in 2024 (report).

Sean O’Brien 50K (with 30K to 100K divisions; the 100K is a Western States qualifier): In Malibu Creek State Park in late January, it’s a great rust-buster for the new year. I ran it in 2016 when I was fast enough to finish third out of some 70 women.

Malibu Canyon 50K (with half marathon to 100K options): This takes place in the coastal hills north of Malibu in early June. I ran it last year and felt the stoke of racing flowing buffed-out trails (report).

And lastly, I have never run the legendary Coyote Two Moon ultra, but I’m signing up for its 100K for 2027! With a variety of distance options, it takes place during a full moon—starting April 30 for 2027—in the Los Padres National Forest around Ojai, near my childhood home and high school. More a group run than a competitive race, it existed from 2008-2011 and gained a reputation for wackiness featuring costumes and mid-race games and antics. Then it faded out but was resurrected in 2024. (See this excellent article in UltraRunning.)

The 2024 100-miler winner of Coyote Two Moon said, “In some sense this grassroots, local, scrappy race feels more authentic to ultrarunning to me than many of the higher profile events. It’s a group of crazies in pursuit of experience, throwing a party in the middle of mountains and celebrating taking on hard things.”

I’m in for that!

The two best short videos I watched last week

After Dolly died, honored her “9 to 5” by running nine 5Ks in a day. He filmed it, and sprinkled in facts about Dolly’s life, in this wonderful five-minute video. Jeff has interested me ever since I got to know him during the 2024 Grand to Grand Ultra.

And if you know my stance against generative AI, you can guess why I love this two-minute video by in which he creatively and thoughtfully answers the question, “Why don’t you just have ChatGPT write it?” A must-see:

And that’s all! Thanks for reading this far. I’ll sign off with a shot mid-run by the Santa Monica Pier, which is a place that always makes my husband and me laugh because we remember when he got a part-time job on the pier in the summer of 1987 drawing “fun sketch” caricatures of tourists, and I’d visit him there (both of us stoned half the time), and we’d get the giggles about how some tourists who paid for a caricature got upset when his drawings turned out extra unflattering.

Hello from Los Angeles, where I’m spending the week in mom-mode with my 28-year-old daughter. We’re shopping for her wedding dress in advance of her wedding next June, which stirs all kinds of emotions (including love, pride, nostalgia). My 25-year-old son, who’s in Ojai, will drive down Friday after he gets off work, so I get to spend time with both.

During downtime, I’ll focus on re-reading my manuscript one more time before submitting it to copy editing. I’ll also endeavor to have faster runs along the Venice Beach bike path and head to the Santa Monica Mountains for a longer hill run. And of course, in mom-mode, I’ll shop for groceries, cook some favorite dishes, and tidy up my daughter’s condo not because I have to, nor does she need it, but rather because it’s deeply satisfying to care for her and feel connected to her life.

I shared that to explain why mentally, I’m unable to produce a newsletter story this week. I tried to write something with UTMB commentary but scrapped it. My mind is elsewhere. I’ll be back next week with more. Meanwhile, I have some recommended reading and listening.

Thank you for all the encouraging and sympathetic comments last week following my longer race report about the San Juan Softie 100, which I ended around mile 65. This photo from Sunday morning shows I’m feeling good again!

After volunteering as an aid station captain all day Saturday at the stellar Telluride Mountain Run, I entered the event’s inaugural Hill Climb Challenge on Sunday for a tough workout that offered ideal training for the September 12 Imogene Pass Run (which is a sub-ultra mountain race with 10 miles up and 7 down that summits above 13,000 feet). Sunday’s hill climb race ascended 4.5 miles and 4000 feet from town to the tippy-top of the ski resort (then we had to run or hike down on our own, which wasn’t part of the race). The slopes were so steep and the air so thin, I and others could run only very short segments, so the event was really a race to see who could hike the fastest.

I lined up with 45 others not sure how hard to push or what to expect. After the first switchback, I realized with relief that my legs felt fresh and strong following a week of post-ultra recovery with minimal activity. I decided to push my effort and breathing to the “sustainably hard” level of a tempo run.

Gradually, as if in slow-mo since we mostly “power hiked” rather than ran the ski slopes, I passed numerous people. I reached the top as the second woman, fifth overall, totally pumped and elated. After slogging through a defeating ultra for 18+ hours the prior weekend, accomplishing a hard effort in under 90 minutes was pure joy. Plus, we celebrated the high-alpine blue-sky views!

My friend Cristal Hibbard finished close behind. She is the one who co-coaches the Traverse Trail Camps women’s running retreats that I recommend, with one in southwest Colorado starting in a month (September 30) and another in Tucson starting January 21.

I’m motivated to train again and looking forward to the 17-mile Imogene Pass Run and then the Javelina 100K on Halloween. I also acted on my middle-of-the-night fantasies described in last week’s post and booked a getaway to Mexico and signed up for some personal-trainer sessions at our gym to recommit to strength training.

For listening and reading:

When I heard that Dolly Parton died, I immediately thought back to this unforgettable podcast series from 2019 about her and her role in American culture, called “Dolly Parton’s America.” Created by Jad Abumrad of Radiolab, I highly recommend it.

’s The Morning Shakeout offers wisdom about how to create “luck,” which isn’t really luck.

the morning shakeout

the morning shakeout | issue 563

Good morning! Instead of my usual collection of insightful and interesting snippets and links, I’m going to riff on one topic this week because I spent most of yesterday’s run chewing on an idea that I want to attempt to work out here. Let’s get right to it…

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18 days ago · 63 likes · 17 comments · Mario Fraioli

And says put down your phone, pick up a book. I read Substacks on my phone a great deal, so someone holding their phone isn’t always scrolling mindlessly. But his points are important for our brains and really, for our future:

“The best thing you can do to reclaim your ability to think deeply is also one of the simplest: read a book. Reading a book is like consuming healthy foods and going to the gym all at once, but for your brain. When you read a book, you consume unprocessed information in context. You can think of context like fiber: it slows digestion and is the first thing stripped away in highly processed short-form video crap. At the same time, you exert and strengthen focus. You may be uncomfortable at first, especially if you’re out of practice, but reading is a muscle you can rebuild. Eventually, it becomes enjoyable—you reach a point where you’d rather read a book than scroll because of how you feel after, because of how it nourishes your brain (and soul) instead of burning it out.

“Reading a book asks something of you that almost nothing else in modern life does: it asks you to stay with one idea, in one place, for an extended period of time. It asks you to wrestle with complexity, pay attention to someone else’s thinking, and ultimately think for yourself. When you have a deep reading practice, you regularly get to experience the joy of losing yourself in a story and the exhilaration of making a new connection or thinking an original thought.”

Read the rest here. And my tips for developing a reading habit here.

I’m thrilled to see this bookshelf in my daughter’s condo, proof she rediscovered a reading-for-pleasure habit. (My son doesn’t share it, but maybe he will later in life.)

And that’s all for now—I have to run and then get dressed in something that passes for boutique-chic! I’m excited to help my daughter choose a dress that reflects her style, unlike my 1990 off-the-rack billowing wedding dress with the scratchy bodice and beading that looked as overblown as my bangs.

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I became an ultrarunner some 20 years ago, following a decade of road racing 5Ks to marathons, in part because my character is hardwired to go to extremes for the thrill, intoxication, and attention that come with altering normalcy. Ultrarunning became a way to escape, feel a buzz, and get noticed in the otherwise conventional life I settled into in my thirties as a wife and mother.

Early on, I was the girl at the sixth-grade pool party who took the dare to jump in the water wearing all my clothes, and the one to eat a worm in front of everyone after we read the How to Eat Fried Worms book. I was the hungover and emotionally wrecked senior in high school who impulsively galloped my mare toward a picnic table—bareback with no saddle, no helmet—to jump it, knowing the consequences would be severe if she refused or crashed. I was the one “on a path of self-destruction,” in the words of the dean of students, who put out to older men and drank to excess and said yes to hard substances like cocaine, ecstasy, and LSD. I was the one to go to journalism school not so much because I cared to chase the news but because I got hooked on having a byline and writing something that mattered.

My birth order primed me for my behavior. The youngest of five with a seven-year gap between me and number four, I tagged along with much older sibs while my parents did minimal parenting by the time I came along. I also blame and love my dad for my temperament. Inwardly, my dad was insecure and lonely as an only child, but outwardly, he filled every room with his gregarious personality and liquored-up loudness. His moods swung dramatically from loving to violent.

Thanks to this upbringing, I was conditioned to stand out and push boundaries. My parents dismissed anyone they deemed boring as “a dial tone.” If I were normal and straight-laced, I wouldn’t belong. But if I acted sassy—such as when I was seven and asked rhetorically, “Do bears shit in the woods?” instead of simply answering “yes” to a question—then I earned my parents’ laughter, which meant their approval.

I’m sharing all that for context on why it’s always been difficult for me to moderate my behavior and fall in line with whatever is considered reasonable and expected for a woman at my age and stage. I still want to be an outlier and defy normalcy.

I still want to run 100-milers.

So now I’ll get to my race report from last Friday through Saturday, because I went to extreme highs and lows. But the comedown was so painful and draining, I believe I hit the point where moderation will kick in by necessity.

As good as it gets

A rainstorm last Thursday made everything along the trail fresh and damp, colors popping. The San Juan Softie 100 starts and ends at the ski resort of Purgatory, north of Durango, and makes a giant loop in the San Juan Mountains south of Silverton with about 19,000 feet of vertical gain and an average elevation around 10,000 feet. Part of the route follows the Colorado Trail before crossing into the Lizard Head Wilderness. I had pre-run slightly less than half of the route and was eager to experience the new-to-me segments.

The moisture on the foliage, and the giant puddles we had to skirt, got my race off to a feel-good start. I was so grateful for damp earth and clear-blue sky after a summer of dryness and wildfire smoke. I noticed and celebrated details along the way, as captured in these photos.

My game plan was to relax and not push hard so that I would save energy for the nighttime hours. My easygoing pace put me in the back third of the pack, but I didn’t care about my placement. I only cared about feeling positive and steady, staying ahead of cutoffs, and most importantly, setting myself up for success rather than meltdown in the second half.

I felt haunted by the suffer-fest of last summer’s Hardrock Hundred, when I vomited and dry-heaved for the whole second half of the route and lost my ability to run because any jostling made my stomach cramp painfully. Hardrock went into a second night and took me 46 hours, close to the 48-hour limit.

I welcomed a “softer” 100-mile mountain ultra with a 38-hour limit, which meant I just had to get through one night and the second day to finish sometime Saturday afternoon or early evening. Surely I could do that. Staying up through one night isn’t too difficult. It was my 12th 100-miler (not counting the five self-supported stage races I’ve done that go 170 miles), so I know what I’m doing.

I got to the first major aid station at mile 19.5, before a big climb up Engineer Mountain, and spotted a special chaise-lounge. The Softie has a sofa on its logo, and an old comfy couch for a finish line, so I took time to appreciate their funny furniture by stretching out on it while savoring a fresh quesadilla, which tasted delicious (real cheddar, greasy tortilla). The fact that food tasted and felt good boosted my confidence that my stomach would behave.

My mood matched the elevated route, and my emotions spiked. I reached out and grazed my fingers on every tall monument plant I passed (which I wrote about last week) and silently told them that they had lived a glorious long life, and I too would blossom at the end stage of this odyssey.

Toward the top of Engineer Mountain, I began leapfrogging with three other women—two Rachels and an Ellie—and we naturally began to work as a foursome. I did not alter my effort level to stay with them, but their company enhanced my motivation, and I studied and tried to emulate Ellie’s quick turnover. I had in AirPods for music, so we didn’t talk much, but their presence made me feel supported and buoyant. The pre-pandemic playlist from the mid to late 2010s made me envision my son and daughter when they were in high school, and in my mind I relived some of the best moments of my mid-forties when I was a parent of teens.

In the company of those three women, I entered a flow state of focused effort where challenge met ability along with gratitude and confidence, knowing I had trained and developed the skills to experience those glorious miles.

Approaching the high point of the route on the Colorado Trail, strong weather with cold temps moved in, and I paused to put on my rain jacket and rain pants. But I didn’t hear thunder, so the fact we only had rain and weren’t threatened by electricity made me happier.

On the back side of that pass, coming into the mile 36 aid station, a small-world encounter stopped me in my tracks. A woman who looked around my age hiked along the trail with her husband. As I thanked them for stepping to the side to let me pass, she said, “Excuse me, but I’ve been trying to find someone out here named Sarah Lavender Smith. Do you know her?”

“That’s me. Who are you?”

Her whole face lit up. “I know this sounds strange, but…” and she proceeded to explain how she has followed me for over a decade, read my book, studied a post on my old blog about how to do the Routeburn Track in a day, and on and on. She was on a multi-day hike and read that I’d be out doing the Softie, and “I’ve been keeping an eye out for your braids,” she said.

“You’re from Sacramento?” I said, “I love Sacramento! I used to live at 18th & T and work at Java City and the Sacramento News & Review!” We had a burst of conversation and connection that continued into the aid station. When we said goodbye, I hoped we’d meet again.

My brain buzzed with a heady sensation that someone cared and that my writing wasn’t pointless.

I ran with a pep in my step along the final portion to the mile 46 aid station, where I would meet my husband and crew. When I recognized that my feet and legs were growing fatigued, I took longer hiking breaks and felt fine. I admired the familiar cluster of peaks in the distance, punctuated by the chimney-like Lizard Head, and soaked in the beauty of a perfect day.

Part of me wished I could end it halfway. It would be a great 50-miler.

Since it was around 6:30 p.m., I knew I needed to eat well at the aid station for the long night ahead. I reached in my pocket and took out a little pill, my ace in the hole. It was one of two Zofran pills I carried, a prescription anti-nausea med left over from my daughter’s orthopedic surgery.

I wasn’t proud of the fact I was using someone else’s prescription medication, even though Zofran is not prohibited. I hold the view that if you need meds to get through something, then perhaps you shouldn’t be doing it. I had not used Zofran at Hardrock but heard others had, and it had rescued their ill stomaches, so I decided to use it prophylactically. (I had tried it in training with no side effects.) I swallowed the pill and about 20 minutes later met my trusty crew—my friend Cristal Hibbard, her friend Jeff Rice whom I’d met this summer, and my husband Morgan.

They were total pros taking care of me. I ate a slice of pizza, a cup of mashed potatoes, drank a can of sparkling water, and felt A-OK—physically tired, but mentally positive and alert. I donned all my nighttime gear and headed up the trail with Jeff, who would pace me for 25 miles through the darkness until Cristal took over.

The six miles to the next aid station were pleasant enough. But when the sun went down and we turned on our headlamps, everything changed.

As bad as it gets

My mood flattened and stomach turned. When I tried ramen at the aid station, the noodles tasted gross, and my throat rejected them, the first bad sign. In the deep darkness of a forest with no moonlight, Jeff and I began a long climb up and across a ridge, and my hiking grew clumsy on the rocky route.

Sleepiness hit too early—it wasn’t even close to midnight. Needing energy, I tried another gel. The Precision Fuel gels and chews had worked all day. But I had to stop and take deep breaths to fight a gag reflex and swallow it.

Maybe a mile later, around 11 p.m., a carsick sensation seized my torso, and then my stomach contents all came up—a bucket full of chunky liquid. Damn it. I was so upset. The thing I wanted most to prevent had happened.

I unwrapped a Pepto Bismol tablet and forced myself to chew and swallow it, and a little while later, I took the second Zofran, hoping my stomach would reset. But my mouth and throat barely allowed sips of water.

Jeff, probably wondering what he had signed up for, tried to distract me with conversation. He asked about “my why” for running ultras. I could barely answer above a whisper due to my hoarse voice and puke-sore throat. “I wrote a book about it,” I mumbled and tried to explain my forthcoming memoir.

I wanted to tell him I ran ultras for the kind of day I had earlier—for the elevated emotions and mood, the sense of accomplishment and discovery, and the connections with community—and also, for the special thrill of going through the night. Not for this kind of night that was turning into a slow-mo anxiety dream where you can’t get where you need to go.

I also wanted to explain that my reason for this 100 was to have a do-over of the bad second night at Hardrock, to prove I could get through the night without falling apart, but there I was, falling apart.

As we crossed midnight into the first hours of Saturday, I kept needing to pause to lean on my trekking poles and catch my breath. I had run and briskly hiked this 12-mile ridge portion two weeks earlier with two friends, and I couldn’t reconcile that earlier bright, beautiful, upbeat outing with this dark, cold, incredibly slow hike that was unfolding.

I recognized the sense of dread mixed with nausea in the pit of my stomach as anxiety fueled by failure. This was not going according to plan. And I had no way out; I felt trapped. I tried to stop the mental downward spiral with self-talk of a coach, reminding myself that I’d feel better when we reached sunrise and lower elevation, and forward progress no matter how slow is still progress.

But the other part of my brain argued back that I didn’t want to do this because it wasn’t good for me. My stomach hurt, feet hurt, brain hurt, and I knew this level of stress wasn’t healthy or normal.

Fantasies that vividly filled my head, as I hiked hunched and wobbly, spoke to my desire to be strong, healthy, and the runner I used to be. I imagined hiring the trainer at our local gym for personal-training sessions to recommit to strength workouts. I pictured returning to our regional track to restart weekly speed sessions, and I fantasized about how it would feel to stride out on the track. I also reflected on the recent sub-ultra races I ran for training—the Box Canyon 30K and Aspen Backcountry Marathon—and recalled how fluidly I ran and pushed hard at the end. I so very much wanted to feel like a runner, not an ill shuffler taking close to 30 minutes to go a mile.

Impulsively, I told Jeff I needed a nap, and I fished out my mylar emergency blanket, threw it on the ground, and laid down to sleep for 10 minutes. I wasn’t actually at the point of sleep-walking to justify a dirt nap. I mainly wanted to close my eyes and escape. I fell half-asleep, then felt colder, stiffer, and slower when I got up.

I argued with myself not to make up my mind about dropping—to keep my mind open and focus only on mile by mile. But I couldn’t stop the refrain of I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to do this. The Zofran and Pepto did not work; I could not get anything more down my throat, and I became more bone-deep sleepy.

At 3 a.m., we finally reached the mile 65 aid station, located in a remote area without crew access. I told Jeff I needed a real nap to reset my stomach and mood, and I made use of the aid station’s tent, which had a blissful pad and sleeping bag. Immediately, I fell deeply asleep. When Jeff woke me a half hour later, I asked him to give me 10 more minutes.

As I cocooned in the warmth and darkness of that tent, I repeatedly thought, I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. The night was the opposite of what I had wanted. I hated feeling so weak, sick, and sleepy. My need for sleep seemed insurmountable. I recalled the night a decade earlier when I ran—really ran—through the night and passed so many men to get a sub-24-hour buckle at the Western States 100. I wasn’t that runner anymore. I wanted to run 50Ks and 50-milers, not 100s.

Somehow, I emerged from the tent and sat for a bit. The kind volunteers offered me a warm mug full of mashed potatoes made with broth, but the texture and smell repulsed me, indicating my taste and stomach hadn’t reset.

I made up my mind. “I’m done,” I told Jeff.

I was rebelling against the notion that I had to keep going, reasserting my autonomy. I refused even to go the next six miles to the crew-accessible aid station where I could get a ride. Jeff and I made a plan to take a shortcut through the woods to the town of Rico, where Cristal’s husband would pick us up.

At that moment, I didn’t feel regret or shame, only disappointment and relief, along with a hint of joy that the volunteers would allow me to drop there rather than at the next aid station. The regret didn’t follow, but shame did.

As Jeff and I hiked a couple of miles through the woods, I asked myself, did that really just happen? Did I do the right thing? Yes and yes. I wasn’t fully trained or cut out for this anymore.

Cristal’s heroic husband generously gave me a 45-minute ride all the way home, and I slept soundly. Then I crawled into bed at home and slept. Then Morgan drove me two hours to Purgatory to retrieve my car and check out of lodging, and I slept on that drive. Then instead of checking out of the condo rental right away, I slept a couple of hours more there.

That whole time, I should have been running toward the finish line. My need for sleep was insatiable. And I had slept well the whole week prior—my watch congratulating me on “optimal sleep stages” and telling me my training readiness was high—so I entered this event fully rested. And yet I needed to sleep. What is up with that fatigue? I interpret it as a consequence of aging. I can’t ignore that my body has changed.

As I watched others finish the Softie in the late afternoon—including Ellie and the two Rachels—I struggled with envy and sadness, including sadness that I didn’t see the final third of the course or go through later aid stations where friends volunteered.

I didn’t second-guess my decision; rather, I doubted more than ever that I can keep going past 50ish miles if I can’t ingest calories and fluids to sustain me and can’t prevent sleepiness. More deeply, I lack desire. I imagine the second half of a 100-miler now with dread rather than excitement and feel protective of my body.

By contrast, I feel excited about the 17-mile Imogene Pass Run on calendar in three weeks, and relieved and excited that I downgraded the October 31 Javelina Jundred to the 100K distance.

A recent post by resonated with me. “When you pour your all into something—a sport, a craft, a relationship, a team—it becomes a part of who you are. The sadness you experience when you leave it behind is the price you pay for having the experience,” he wrote.

I’m processing sadness from not being an ultrarunner who runs 100s anymore. To go shorter and not run through the night feels so … normal and moderate. Healthier, yes. But healthy is boring.

I have debated the unhealthiness of ultras and my growing ambivalence before:

Enough is enough. I will try to shift my thinking to embrace the challenge of training for and executing 50s well. I’m also holding on to the happy memories of Friday’s daytime miles.

I’ll end with a note of gratitude for this really cool three-year-old homegrown ultra, the San Juan Softie. And look, I earned a funny T-shirt at the end!

Hello friends,

I’ll be honest, I’m still braindead from this weekend as my body processes fatigue and emotion from dropp…

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It must be ultra race week because I’m having anxiety dreams about over-stuffed and misplaced drop bags. This Friday and Saturday, I’ll race the San Juan Softie 100-miler, which forms a big loop in a portion of the San Juan Mountains in between Silverton and Durango. You can learn about it on its website and follow the event tracking through links there. With a 38-hour cutoff, my hope is to finish within 36 hours and not be stressed by cutoff times. I also intend to stay safe and take care of myself in what looks to be a rainy afternoon with lightning while I’m above timberline.

My main goal is to finish running and feeling strong to make up for a retching hike-in finish at my last hundred (race report). I look forward to reporting back on how it goes next Wednesday!

Mostly, I’m excited to see and complete this trail loop, as I’m familiar with less than 50 percent of the route, and to be a part of a low-key, home-grown 100-miler now in its third year. In 2024, its inaugural year, only 22 finished and 23 DNF’ed. Last year, on an altered route due to wildfire, 26 finished and 26 DNF’ed. So by those stats, it ain’t easy in spite of “softie” in its name (a playful nod to Hardrock, the neighboring 100-miler to the north, being harder).

This year, the Softie will be at its permitted capacity of 100, and it has a waitlist, so I predict it’ll grow. In an era of ultras increasingly dominated by UTMB’s brand and professionalism, I love a small, personal race where local volunteers make every runner feel special, and the finish line consists of an old sofa onto which the finishers flop and rest. (I’ll be so tired, I won’t care about the upholstery’s dirt and germs.)

Special request: I’d appreciate if you’d suggest a song for my playlist, or a mantra for my head, in the comments below for the 103 miles of the route. Thank you.

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Blaze of glory

I can’t stop thinking about this summer’s monument plant superbloom and marveling at each tall flowering stalk I see along the trail.

Imagine if you fell in love with something right before it ended, like becoming a Deadhead and buying tickets to shows in early summer of ‘95 a month before Jerry Garcia died. That’s how I feel in relation to the monument plants. I became a fan late, and now the magnificent stalks are shriveling and will be gone after this season, future superblooms less certain.

Monument plants, also called green gentians, made a stunning appearance in the San Juan Mountains this summer. They grow over five feet tall and blossom four-petaled white flowers that cluster around its stalk. A wet summer in 2022 triggered this summer’s superbloom, because they take four years to develop their stalk. And wet summers in the West are becoming … well, you know.

They spend decades—20 to 80 years(!)—clustered low to the ground. Then summer precipitation triggers them to grow, and an above-average rainfall leads to a superbloom. They spend about three years growing deeper roots, and then they shoot upward as a flowering stalk in the summer of their peak life and death.

It takes a lifetime to realize their purpose and reveal their beauty. What if we aged like that, looking forward to the end and thinking, “the best is yet to come”?

“If you think about it, a plant that only has one chance in its life to flower and wants to attract pollinators wants to make itself conspicuous. So one way it does that is to make sure it sticks up higher than the surrounding vegetation,” said scientist David Inouye, a green gentian expert who has studied their cycles of growth since the 1970s, in this interview on NPR (yes, the monument plant superbloom made NPR!).

I wasn’t aware of—or, hadn’t paid attention to—the monument plants until my friend Suzanna pointed them out on our run in early July, when they were blooming, as seen in the photo below. I had mistaken them as a relative of skunk cabbage, but skunk cabbage only grows about waist high and has wider leaves.

The idea that they lie in wait for decades before deciding the conditions are right to grow skyward—and then display a massive bloom before dying and dispersing their seeds—fills me with a strong feeling that’s hard to pinpoint.

Perhaps the feeling is related to glory and the idea that if we wait patiently, our time to shine will come. Our life’s purpose and greatest achievement may be waiting to be realized. We can be our most brilliant at the end of life.

The monument plant’s bloom on the cusp of death makes me think of once-in-a-lifetime Olympic performances and late-life Academy Award winners. Or extreme adventurers who die in a rush of adrenaline and danger.

It also makes me think of things and people appreciated only in hindsight, like Emily Dickinson’s treasure of hidden poems discovered posthumously.

It makes me think of Jon Bon Jovi singing the refrain, Goin’ down in a blaze of glory.

It makes me think of the divine and the possibility that we meet light instead of dark at the end.

It also makes me consider how knowledge is essential for appreciation. I had seen the monument plant before, but had not looked closely or learned about it until now. We take so much of nature for granted when we don’t know its story.

Back in the summer of 2015, I participated in a photo shoot for Trail Runner and adidas. The photographer took a photo of me stretching next to a beautiful, somewhat phallic plant. I knew nothing about the plant and barely noticed it.

Now I see that photo and want to shout, “Don’t look at me randomly stretching my hip flexor and tricep; admire that monument plant!” The flowering stalk was natural and life-giving, while next to it, I was a poser, treating the landscape as a playground for personal gain, my eyes missing the glory right in front of me.

If I could do that shot again, I’d kneel down to feel the ground, gaze up to study the stalk, and rejoice with a prayer of thanks.

Don’t miss this film

The monument plant affected me when I began to view it as a living creature and to imagine life from its perspective. With that in mind, I want to recommend one of my favorite nature films—which I promise is neither boring nor depressing—that succeeds because it creates characters out of animals in their habitats along the Colorado River.

The film is The American Southwest, and it recently began streaming on PBS. I saw it during the 2025 MountainFilm fest and wrote then:

While serious given the gravity of threats to the Colorado River, The American Southwest also is fanciful and utterly captivating with the most incredible cinematography I’ve ever seen. It achieves its aim of illustrating the river’s ecosystem, and what’s a stake with the river’s use and management, by telling the story of species that live along it from their perspectives. Elk, beaver, jaguar, condor, rattlesnake, trout, and the salmonfly become the film’s stars with dramatic up-close shots that show how they live and depend on the river. I did not expect this film to be humorous in parts, but it made me laugh, and it also made me cry. Few nature films deliver such an emotional hit.

And don’t miss this southwest Colorado trail-running camp

My friends Cristal and Amy are putting on an all-women’s five-day, four-night trail-running camp in the southwest corner of Colorado near the town of Dolores, September 30 - October 4. This is a gorgeous place to run, especially in the fall to experience both cooler high-desert landscapes and golden aspen groves. The two provide excellent coaching and support. I attended their camp in early 2025 and loved it and think it’s well priced for what you get.

This is their first “Level 2” camp, which means it’s not for complete beginners, but don’t be intimidated; if you can run 10K continuously and be on a trail for up to five hours, mixing hiking with running, then it’s for you. Visit the site to learn more and register and follow @traverse.trail.camps on Instagram.

One of the camp’s trail destinations will be the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, as seen below in these two pics from when Cristal and I ran there early in the year.

Jasmin Paris, role model

Last week Callum Jones’s newsletter featured a worthwhile interview with Jasmin Paris, who you might know as the first and only woman to finish the near-impossible Barkley Marathons in 2024. Callum is a business reporter for The Guardian, and his newsletter, Footprint, is on a platform other than Substack, so you might not be aware of it. You can subscribe here.

In it, Jasmin talks about co-founding The Green Runners, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing runners’ carbon footprint and other environmental impacts (I joined through that link and you can too). She urges us to buy less, race closer to home while considering how much we fly and drive for the sake of racing, and reduce single-use plastic and meat consumption.

Jasmin dropped her brand sponsorships after co-founding Green Runners. “I wanted to dispel this myth that you need new kit, new colors, every season,” she said. “Whether you run well has nothing to do with that.”

I love her advocacy, which counters the constant messages to spend and buy more. Fellow Substacker wrote this week about how consumerism and fashion have infiltrated the trail/ultra space, citing nauseating advertorial copy in GQ that promotes Satisfy’s $240 shorts and $330 tie-dyed wool shirt.

Personally, I’m trying to get more life out of my Hokas, buy less, and recycle gear more.

You can read more about Jasmin and the photographer Howie Stern, who documented her incredible achievement, in my archived post, which is this newsletter’s second-most popular post ever:

And that’s all for this week. Please consider my request at the top—I’d appreciate if you’d suggest a song for my playlist, or a mantra for my head, for my run Friday-Saturday at the San Juan Softie 100, thank you!

Reading and midlife reflection

I did not love Ann Patchett’s new novel, Whistler, even though its cover has a horse painting and its story wraps around a horse story, which is irresistible to a horsewoman like me. I had to finish the novel for book club, otherwise I probably would’ve DNF’ed two-thirds through out of impatience with the too-precious characters and their sentimentality around New York life.

Ultimately, however, the book redeemed itself, because it imparted two truths to which I very much relate: (1) most of us have dark shit to unpack from childhood, and (2) later in life, we can reframe and appreciate loved ones—especially our parents—whom we blamed or resented earlier in life.

This midlife perspective feels like a gift of release and reconciliation. After we reach or pass the age that our parents were when they supposedly warped us, neglected us, or fundamentally misunderstood us during our childhood through early adulthood, then we might see them in a more charitable light, curiosity replacing resentment. Less preoccupied with how they disappointed or infuriated us, we wonder, what was life like for them? What unmet needs or insecurities made them act the way they did? If we turned out OK, then we might thank and miss them more than blame them.

That’s my experience and my relationship with my now-deceased parents in a nutshell, anyway.

Toward the end of Whistler, the protagonist’s therapist sister discusses their parents with appreciation for how their upbringing shaped them—and how hands-off or free-range parenting in the 1970s-’80s in many ways proved healthier for the child’s development than our generation’s micromanaging and helicopter parenting for Gen Z:

“We were loved, not passionately but enough, and we were largely ignored, which allowed for our healthy separation from the primary family. Necessity made us resourceful and brave. We were left to solve our own problems, and so we did. The children you should worry about are the ones who are the singular light of their parents’ lives, the ones who hit thirty and are still calling their mom five times a day.”

Last week, I made a soft announcement of a publishing deal for my forthcoming memoir, which is a midlife adventure and love story framed by an extreme weeklong ultra. I’ll add here that my memoir has a lot to do with my parents. In it, while running across the desert, I return to childhood and adolescence to figure out what primed me to become an ultrarunner after a non-sporty party-girl upbringing in which my folks did not encourage me to be athletic and generally gave me little guidance.

My athletic streak and desire for outdoor adventure, which I didn’t begin to develop until my mid-twenties, was planted in childhood by spending a lot of time solo, often with my horse, while my parents let me run wild. I had to cope with some negative, even traumatic, incidents and never turned to my parents for help or viewed them as confidantes.

The lines from the novel above, “Necessity made us resourceful and brave. We were left to solve our own problems, and so we did” apply to my childhood. And now, I can thank my parents, whereas when I was a new mother in my early thirties raising my own kids much differently than I was raised, I focused on how my mother was clueless and disconnected from my life and my father was a sometimes explosive loose cannon. I vowed to be a different, better parent to my daughter and son.

Patchett’s novel turned out to be a worthwhile story not so much for its setting and plot, but rather because the character development touched something internally and made me feel less alone, better understood. I hope my memoir can do that for readers, too.

Running around Aspen

Aspen is a four-hour drive from where I live, and until last year I hadn’t spent time there mainly because its reputation turned me off more than attracted me. Our town, Telluride, gets criticized for being “Aspen-ized” from affluence, so with reverse snobbery I decided I didn’t need to visit another mountain town with outrageously priced boutiques since our town has plenty.

Then I had reason to spend time in its more affordable nearby town, Basalt, because that’s where the Steadman orthopedic surgery center is located. And then I went to last September’s inaugural Aspen Literary Fest (which I’m attending again September 25 - 27; please reach out to connect if you’ll be there!). Those experiences exposed me to Basalt and Aspen, and I fell in love with their settings. I can ignore Aspen’s Goop and Prada stores and focus instead on its charming walkways next to the Roaring Fork River and stay in Basalt for more affordable lodging.

When I learned about the Aspen Backcountry Marathon, I signed up for a reason to explore Aspen’s trails and for a supported long training run—my last long run before tapering for August 14’s San Juan Softie 100.

The Aspen Backcountry Marathon has an interesting backstory. “Aspen Backcountry was the event that pulled the great runners from the Western Slope and beyond to our little mountain valley,” says Jeff Colt of nearby Carbondale, the High Lonesome 100 course record-holder who ran the Aspen Backcountry Marathon in 2019 and 2021 and ultimately became the guy who saved it.

The city of Aspen used to manage and sponsor the event but pulled the plug on it in 2023, deciding it was benefiting out-of-towners more than locals. The race didn’t happen in 2024, then Jeff Colt reached out to Jamil Coury of Aravaipa Running. Aravaipa took it over last year, adding a 50K (there’s also a “heavy half” that’s nearly 15 miles long).

I love that story because it shows one person stepping up to keep a local race going, and Aravaipa (which in my view keeps a grassroots feel in spite of its growing franchise) stepping in to make it better.

Jeff aptly described the route: “While altitude will always be a challenge, I think the 26.2 miles and 4,700 feet of the marathon is a really nice balance of challenge and delight—it skews more enjoyable than masochistic on the scales.”

Train to race, but also race to train

Some 20 miles into the marathon on Saturday, facing an unexpected 500-foot ascent on switchbacking singletrack, I shifted into overdrive and lost count of the number of runners I passed.

I still had power in my legs and still managed to produce sweat in spite of a hot breeze that blew like a dryer. I had signed up for a long training run but then a playful part of me decided I could, in fact, race. This is a 10K with at 20-mile warmup, I said inwardly and became determined to pass more runners and finish under six hours. Six hours sounds like a super slow marathon time—and is, for a road marathon—but for this trail effort with not-insignificant vert on a hot day, sub-6 would be respectable.

I had hoped the final two miles would merge with the flat, fast bike path so I could sprint toward the end, but nope, it followed a meandering rocky creekside path and, according to my watch, was an extra mile long. Still, I ran purposefully and motivated. I crossed in six hours flat, almost—6:00:44—elated by the day and by the fact I finished fifth female.

A similar thing happened two Saturdays ago, July 25, when I signed up for a small Telluride race, the Box Canyon 30K (19 miles), for camaraderie and to support the local guys who direct it. I started off super relaxed in the mid to back of the pack, my priority being to go the distance for a solid training run, and then toward the top of the second big climb, I worked to catch and pass two women. The final four miles, I raced hard to stay ahead of them and finished fifth woman.

In both those races, the four women who finished ahead of me were in their twenties or thirties, so I won the master’s age group. More importantly, I had fun! Racing toward the end felt like a game.

Although signing up for races adds up to a lot of money spent on registration fees, I feel it’s worth it because the races make the training run more efficient than I’d experience if I were running on my own. I always run more efficiently and with greater motivation in a race environment than on a self-supported training run.

Racing for training also demystifies getting to the start line with all your gear and starting on time, in a pack, and it allows you to practice using aid stations as you would in your goal race. It’s like a dress rehearsal for the big performance.

These past two Saturdays reinforced the start-easy strategy I vow to use for the San Juan Softie 100. I always intend to run the first portion of a 100-miler relaxed and with minimal effort, but in reality, I feel stressed and create self-imposed pressure to bank time on the first day because I know I’ll slow significantly after nightfall due to fatigue and poor eyesight in the dark.

This time, I plan to be truly chill and low-stress during the first day’s effort, and then who knows? Maybe I won’t slow so much and feel so sleepy during the night. Maybe I’ll even have something left in my tank to race toward the end.

A cool guy

I wrote another piece for Trail Runner, this one a profile of Ryan Sullivan, an elite-level but little-known ultrarunner from Grand Junction who won High Lonesome 100 in mid-July.

I had a chance encounter with him and three well-known pro ultrarunners (Jason Schlarb, DBo, and Jimmy Elam) earlier this summer when I was solo on a mountaintop and they popped up on the summit, and we started chatting. Ryan instantly interested me as the one guy in the foursome who ran below the radar and wasn’t on social media.

The following week, he recognized me at San Juan Solstice 50 and bothered to say hi and re-introduce himself. It’s a reminder that first impressions matter. He impressed me as a nice guy who’s also a doctor who cares for others. I was intrigued to find out more about his work-life balance and his decision to live mostly offline (save for Strava), and it felt satisfying to develop a story from that start. It turned into a buddy story too because of his friend group (which in a small-world way includes Jeff Colt, the guy I wrote about above). I hope it might inspire you! Read it here.

Thanks for being here! I’m curious, if you read Whistler, what did you think of it? Also, have you had any races-for-training-runs this summer and if so, how did they go?

Before I share this week’s commentary and links, I’d like to make a pitch for support. Paid subscribers receive occasional bonus posts; for example, I published a story for them yesterday about a recovered memory of a mountain race. I also host a monthly Zoom where we chat and sometimes do a Q&A with a special guest. I hope you will consider upgrading your subscription to the supporter level. I’d greatly appreciate it!

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Two big announcements, related

If you’re relatively new to this newsletter, you probably don’t know about my relationship with a special endurance event—a weeklong, self-supported, off-the-grid 170-mile stage race called the Grand to Grand Ultra. I participated in it four times (2012, ‘14, ‘19, ‘24; plus, I did the organizers’ one-time spinoff in 2017 on Hawaii).

I’m not exaggerating when I say this event shaped my adulthood. Each edition was a kind of vision quest and affected not only my development as a runner but also my character, relationships, and choices I made after I returned home.

Here’s the first of many teaser videos they made, based on the inaugural year’s footage, less than two minutes long to give you an idea of what it’s about:

Last week, I and other Grand to Grand Ultra alumni received a message that the event founders are retiring from race directing it, and therefore 2027 will be the final Grand to Grand Ultra, unless another entity takes it over. Founders Tess and Colin Geddes have worked incredibly hard to build and maintain the event, so I imagine they’re just plain tired after 14 years of making this logistically complicated event happen. I also suspect the event is struggling to compete with the popularity of single-stage 200-milers.

The Grand to Grand Ultra’s commitment to a “digital detox,” during which competitors are offline for a week, is a big part of what makes it special (along with the incredible remote landscape). The event also is crew-less and spectator-less. Those factors (which I love, as it puts the competitors “out there” and self-reliant) hampers its ability to compete with heavily covered online events such as Cocodona 250 and the Mammoth 200, which have loads of support and spectators, and many runners stay glued to their phones during them.

I truly hope the Grand to Grand continues under a new race director who shares Tess and Colin’s vision. But there’s a good chance the 2027 edition, September 19 - 25, will be its last run. So if you have any interest in it, now is the time to sign up! Registration opened Monday, and the slots likely will fill (many alumni want to run it again). You can learn more and sign up at g2gultra.com.

As tempting as it is, I’m not going to do it again. 2024 truly was my last time competing there. But, I have signed up to volunteer! I want to be there for the week-plus and support all the other runners on their odyssey.

So here’s the second part of my announcement …

I wrote a book based on the Grand to Grand Ultra, and it’s under contract to be published in early 2028!

I used the two weeks in September of 2024, when I traveled to Utah and competed in the Grand to Grand Ultra for a fourth and final time, to frame my midlife adventure memoir. The story, following the preparation and execution of the race, reflects on my upbringing and past pivotal choices as I traverse the desert and grapple with reasons for running. More than an ultrarunning story, it’s a love story that tracks a 40-year relationship with my husband and shows how my need to run both tested and fortified my identity and our bond. It explores and tries to resolve the unmet needs and insecurities that propel me to chronically leave home to run ultras.

One early reader described it as, “an incredible story that goes well beyond a typical endurance memoir, using the brutal miles of the Grand to Grand 170-mile stage race to unpack a lifetime of motivation, missteps, and self-doubt. Sarah is at her best when she’s honest about the double edge of ultrarunning—how it pulled her away from one set of destructive behaviors while subtly feeding another.”

I wish the Grand to Grand Ultra would still exist in 2028 and beyond, because I imagine my story might inspire others to do it. But I’m glad it will pay homage to this truly unique event and document what it was like while it lasted. Who knows, maybe my book will stir interest in resurrecting it.

I’ll for sure share more about the forthcoming book over the next 18 months.

A reminder not to compare your training with others

“Older and wiser” sounds optimistic and aspirational, but in reality, I repeat past mistakes or fall into a trap of unhelpful thoughts when I objectively know better from experience. That happened in the past week or so when I spiraled into discouragement and insecurity about perceived under-preparation and under-training for the August 14 San Juan Softie 100. I feel in 50K or 50M shape, but 100M?

Interaction with a few elite-level runners durning races in recent weeks, and on Strava, triggered my doubt, which is overblown, I know. I have never been a high-volume runner, and I have the results and longevity in the sport to prove that has worked for me, but still, when I see several people training close to or at 100ish miles/week, I seriously doubt my 40- to 60-mile/week volume for 100-mile prep.

A well-written post by coach Jason Koop landed in my inbox at just the right time. I’ve followed his coaching advice via his book for years. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. But I needed his reminder.

His timely post was headlined, “How Much Do You Need to Train for a 100-Mile Ultramarathon?” I encourage you to read the whole post, especially the final section, “What to Do with the Training Time You Have.”

Here are some of his points that brought me relief and made me smile:

“Here’s the flawed logic that keeps aspiring ultrarunners on the sidelines: If marathon training takes 8 hours a week, then a 50-miler must take 16. Training for a 100-miler must take even more. That reasoning seems entirely sound, but it’s 100% wrong. … A 100-miler does not require twice the training of a 50-miler. … High weekly mileage isn’t the cornerstone of effective ultramarathon training. Highly consistent training – stacking weeks and weeks of sustainable training volume – is what counts.”

Koop reminded me to reframe my training volume in hours, not miles, and to consider the minimum time needed for 100-mile training, which he estimates at 9 hours/week for at least six consecutive weeks, starting nine weeks before your goal event.

By that measure, my training has been good enough.

I’ll do a final long run on Saturday—the Aspen Backcountry Marathon, which I signed up for to have a supported long run and to see new trails—then it’s taper time.

Why am I running this 100-miler? The reasons are many and complicated, but boils down the essential reasons in this beautiful new two-minute video he made, complete with handwritten rather than generated captions.

Races give me a reason to train. But really, like Brendan says, I train for the continued ability to run again. It’s about longevity. It’s about realizing again and again that I actually like it and am so grateful I can. Here’s how he puts it:

Safety advice following a tragedy

I’m haunted by Sunday’s news of a 15-year-old boy being struck by lightning and dying while hiking on a mountain in Colorado’s front range. He was trying to protect his younger brother, who was seriously injured in the strike.

A few years ago, I wrote an article about lightning safety for a local hiking company. Coincidentally, they repurposed and sent out the story via email a few days ago, so I refreshed my knowledge on how to stay safe in an electrical storm. Since afternoon monsoons have returned here (with much-needed precipitation), I’m hearing thunder and seeing lighting nearly every day. I made the choice on my run today to stay below timberline because of it.

You can read my article on how lightning works, why heat waves can increase thunderstorms, and what to do when lightning moves overhead here.

Today’s newsletter is shorter than usual because I’m departing early Wednesday on a training run to scout a section of the 100-mile route that I’ll traverse in the dark on the night of August 14. I’m following the lightning-safety advice to “start early and descend early.” I’ll return to storytelling next Wednesday!

I’m writing to share a story and also the recording link to last week’s paid-subscriber Zoom. But first, I want to express gratitude for this small group of supporters and share some inside…

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Later today, I’ll host the monthly Zoom chat for paid subscribers. If you’d like an invitation to the meetup and occasional bonus posts, please upgrade your subscription to the supporter level.

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Why did it take me so long to visit Rocky Mountain National Park?

My trip last weekend began a decade ago with a literary journey.

When we moved from the Bay Area to southwest Colorado in 2016 and built a home on the property across from my parents’ log cabin, I got on a Colorado history kick.

First, I read more of my grandpa David S. Lavender’s writing, since he’s a notable historian who was born and raised in Telluride. His best-loved book and my favorite, One Man’s West, about his time mining and ranching here in the San Juan Mountains, is a masculine tale full of mountain men, with only passing mention of my grandmother and her life. Wanting to learn about female pioneers, I read Tomboy Bride, about a wife and mother at the turn of the century who kept house with Victorian sensibilities in the wild, harsh conditions of the Tomboy Mine settlement above Telluride.

Then I stumbled upon a mind-blowing book: the letters and diary entries from 1873 of Isabella Bird published as A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, about her adventures riding horseback in the part of the Rockies that became Rocky Mountain National Park and climbing the 14er Longs Peak. Her vivid descriptions of the landscape generated interest in preserving it as a national park.

Fast forward to this spring, and I read a new memoir called Climbing Through by Melissa Strong, a high-level sponsored climber and foodie who suffered a horrific electrocution accident while remodeling her restaurant in Estes Park. Electrical current fried her hands and forearms, and she lost the ends of several fingers. Her memoir is about her medical journey to recover and regain the use of her hands and eventually return to climbing.

While reading about her restaurant in Estes Park and the nearby Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), I realized it’s crazy I’ve never been to that part of the state. Morgan and I had plans to go to Denver for a concert, so we tacked on an extra day to explore the national park.

After a seven-hour drive last Thursday, we dined at Melissa’s high-quality, laid-back roadhouse restaurant, Bird & Jim, named after Isabella Bird and her mountain guide Jim, which is on the edge of Estes Park and looks toward the entrance to RMNP. We spent the night at the Estes Park Resort & Spa, at the edge of Lake Estes, which I also recommend. (Sadly, I didn’t get to meet Melissa, since she was traveling, but if you’re in Estes Park next week, she is doing a reading Thursday, July 30, 5:30 p.m. at Bird’s Nest, her newer cafe across the street from Bird & Jim.)

While studying the national park map, which covers around 265,000 acres, 300 miles of trails, and 150 lakes, I felt like an overwhelmed tourist visiting the south rim of the Grand Canyon for the first time, wondering where to go to escape the crowds and discover the park’s best features—all in a single day.

(Note: I found out after I published this post that a fellow Substacker and ultrarunner I admire, , wrote the book on RMNP! If only I had his book Hike the Parks—Rocky Mountain National Park: Best Day Hikes, Walks and Sights before our trip. Don’t make my mistake; get his book!)

We decided to skip the numerous lake trails (since we’re fortunate to live near alpine lakes) and to get up high for panoramic vistas. We also opted for a 50-minute-long curvy scenic drive along the Trail Ridge Road to see more of the park from the drive.

We entered RMNP early Friday, at 7:30 a.m., to get in before the timed reservation system started at 9 a.m. (because we didn’t have a reservation). Like all national parks, you’ll face a backup of cars at the entrance gate, but it wasn’t too bad. Then we did the beautiful drive all the way to the Alpine Visitor Center, at nearly 11,800 feet, and nabbed one of the few remaining parking spaces.

From there, we warmed up with a half-mile hike up steps from the visitor center to summit a ridge and get a 360 view of the park, and I was struck by the quantity of so many 12,000- to 14,000-foot peaks clustered in all directions, unlike the San Juan and Sawatch sub-ranges of the Rockies, which spread out in a more linear swath. Morgan and I both commented that it looked like a high-altitude version of Yosemite. We also celebrated the blue sky. No wildfire smoke up there!

Then we set out in a southwest direction on an out-and-back route on the Ute Trail, the main trail from the visitor’s center that cuts through the tundra. As we descended toward timber line, transitioning from alpine to subalpine zones, the low-lying shrubby pines grew taller and flowers grew thicker. We passed a couple of small, shallow lakes called tarns, formed by glacial action in glacial cirques—the bowl-like depressions that receding glaciers created.

The relatively smooth, well-maintained trail suited us just fine, as we wanted to hike briskly and keep our eyes looking up and around, rather than looking down to navigate a more technical trail. Best of all, the trail was quiet and uncrowded after the first half mile, with only a handful of people passing occasionally.

After nearly four miles, the Ute Trail met the Continental Divide Trail at Milner Pass, and we headed up that to hike toward the 12,874-foot Mount Ida (which we only skirted, not summited).

I mentioned to Morgan, “I wonder who Mount Ida is named for?”

“Ida know!” he replied. (Turns out, no one really knows; one theory is it’s named after Mount Ida in Crete, birthplace of Zeus.)

After we turned around to head back, we faced a ramp-like uphill on the Ute Trail that was not difficult. We ended up hiking nearly nine miles, which felt just right for the day.

We stopped at pullouts on the drive back to view more overlooks. Now we want to return and experience more. But we’re satisfied we got a good taste and overview of the national park in just one day.

After that, we spent a night in Boulder at the new modern Limelight Hotel on The Hill, which was a real treat, and reveled in being back in Boulder (which we experienced as parents during the years our son went to CU). I met an old friend for a run up Mount Sanitas. Then we transitioned to a cheaper hotel for the third night on the outskirts of Denver, next to the Fiddler’s Green venue, to see an incredible concert by Jon Batiste and Tyler Childers—an odd couple for a concert matchup, but I like them both so much, I can’t decide who was better. We felt so fortunate to see both.

If you haven’t seen the documentary about Jon Batiste and his wife , American Symphony, I highly recommend it!

A couple of clips from the show:

Our getaway was the kind of long weekend that makes summer feel like summer. We hit the road, explored somewhere new, and learned something along the way. It took effort to get away but was worth it.

More summertime recommendations

I’m only halfway through Heather Hansman’s new historic nonfiction book, Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America’s Love for the Wild. But I like it so much, I don’t want to wait to finish it before sharing it. By piecing together the little-known or warped stories of these three intrepid and groundbreaking outdoors women, her book falls in line with two similar books I loved, Melissa Sevigny’s Brave the Wild River (about the first women to raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon) and Cassidy Randall’s Thirty Below (about the first all-women’s ascent of Denali).

Fierce Country is different, and arguably more engaging, because Heather puts herself in the story, weaving her own experience as a river guide and outdoor explorer with the three women’s stories that she unearths and retells. As a guide herself, she can identify with the “superwoman myth” that propelled these earlier female adventurers to excel and be tough, hiding any vulnerabilities.

My only mild disappointment is that in researching the story of Georgie White, the complex and controversial Colorado River guide who made a name for herself in the mid-century, Heather overlooked my grandfather’s 1985 book River Runners of the Grand Canyon (which sadly fell out of print, but nonetheless influenced Kevin Fedarko’s Grand Canyon river book The Emerald Mile). My grandfather—who spent a great deal of time on the Colorado River in the 1970s and ’80s, so he must’ve known Georgie—elevated Georgie’s story in his book along with the men’s and included a lot of detail and photographs of her, so for the record, not all men marginalized or criticized the role Georgie White played in river-running history. Heather’s study is far more in-depth and nuanced, however.

Follow Heather on Instagram to see her book talk dates!

More stories from this past week:

• My second piece for Trail Runner related to Hardrock is out. I spotlighted a mother-son duo, both running their first Hardrock, and their mutual support during the high and low points of their odyssey. I will carry Susan Henry’s example and spirit with me as I run the San Juan Softie 100 next month!

• I love the pure joy and beginner’s wonder in my friend ’s story of her first “swimrun” event, and also, her descriptions of the fringe sport’s community (like ultras a generation ago).

Runners Who Write

Smells Like Neoprene Spirit

It started with a simple Google search: “sprint triathlons in Washington State.” I’ve never done a triathlon—my usual joke having always been that I don’t really like cycling or swimming—but last summer, once my begrudging lap swims blossomed into actual pleasure, I wondered if a triathlon might be in the cards for me after all. A …

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2 months ago · 16 likes · 6 comments · Yitka Winn

My friends Cristal and Amy, whose Sedona trail-running camp I attended last year, have rebranded their all-women’s camp as Traverse Trail Camps, and they’re offering an intermediate-level camp in the southwest corner of Colorado September 30 - October 4. It looks fantastic and, while not entirely for beginners, not too difficult. Check it out.

Lastly, if you’ve followed this newsletter for a while, you may recall that my daughter Collier started her own brand of luxury leather handbags and wallets in a contemporary Western style. She is having a summer sale on her classic designs, so please visit her site and follow @by.collier on Instagram, thank you!

Please comment below with any recommendations, reading or otherwise, that are enhancing your summer!

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So, please excuse this week’s newsletter for being short and choppy. But I have reflections on the Hardrock Hundred and a few worthwhile links to share with you.

Some context for newer subscribers: 15 years ago, I got involved with Hardrock, the 100-miler with the motto “wild & tough” that makes a massive loop with 33,000 feet of vertical gain in our San Juan Mountains region by connecting Silverton with Telluride, Ouray, and the outskirts of Lake City. In 2011, I paced a friend for 30 miles of it and got the bug to be a Hardrocker someday, a goal I finally accomplished last year (race report) after running qualifiers and entering the run’s lottery for a decade.

This year, I volunteered at Engineer, a remote pack-in aid station in a high-alpine basin at the halfway mark (mile 52). I wrote about it for Trail Runner, and you can read the story here. (Apologies, the site requires you to register to read it, ugh; I hope you will anyway.) Here’s the Instagram teaser for it:

Working and camping at Engineer delivered surprises, even though I’d previously volunteered at three of Hardrock’s larger full-service aid stations. The small but mighty crew and our setting was more gritty, funny, weird, and wild than any other volunteer gig I’ve experienced.

During the time, I got to collaborate with Jacob Zocherman, a remarkable photojournalist from Sweden who previously was based in Africa covering horrific armed conflict. About a decade ago, he was diagnosed with severe PTSD from all he had witnessed in his line of work, so he switched gears. Trail running became part of his therapy, then he made a name for himself as a photographer of trail and endurance events (notably, Big’s Backyard Ultra and the Barkley Marathons). You can see some of his Hardrock photos in my story and in this well-done article on how Courtney Dauwalter and Ludo Pommeret won and set course records.

Being around all those hard-core Hardrock runners definitely motivated me to prep and get stoked for August 14’s San Juan Softie 100. If you read my last 50-mile report, you may recall my ambivalence about doubling the mileage and my questioning whether I’m causing more harm than health for my body. Welp, if you spend a weekend at Hardrock, that doubt and those questions get pushed to the side. You end up wanting to traverse mountains through the night. You end up fortifying your resolve to push through pain and nausea to reach the finish. The enthusiasm spreads like a virus, and I’m still not immune!

Here are a few photos from the weekend that hint at how special the landscape and people are:

I also loved spending time getting to know this mother and son, Susan and David Henry. As soon as I heard that Hardrock had its first mother and son entered together, each of them doing their first Hardrock, I pitched a story about them. Now I need to write it later today!

The bad news

I’m not going to write much about Trump’s not-surprising but horrible reduction of the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to such a tiny fraction that he virtually eliminated them. He also set up a court fight that could undo the Antiquities Act and imperil all national monuments that protect public lands.

I urge you to sign this petition and educate yourself about why national monuments matter and what’s at stake. The administration’s action puts so much of the landscape and cultural artifacts at risk.

“The move reopens huge swaths of Utah’s canyon country to new mining claims and mineral leasing, reviving the potential for oil and gas drilling, uranium mining, and potash, lithium, and coal extraction in previously protected areas. It also scraps the existing resource management plans for both national monuments, throwing even the remaining shards of protected areas into regulatory uncertainty. Additionally, the proclamations order the managing agencies, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, to ease restrictions on motorized travel, vegetation management, and livestock grazing within the remaining national monuments.” - , read more

“This was never about your hiking boots. It is about uranium under Bears Ears and coal under the Kaiparowits Plateau in Grand Staircase. It is about who gets to own what is underneath. … Grand Staircase is one of the great paleontology labs on the planet. Nearly two dozen new dinosaur species have been named there since the monument was created, along with at least 660 species of native bees. Over 150 scientists signed a letter this year asking that it be left alone. Paleontologists will tell you we have barely started digging. … You cannot un-mine a mesa. You cannot un-loot a grave.” - , read more

I’ll leave you with a cool journaling exercise

Being too braindead on Saturday to write coherent paragraphs, I scrolled Substack and came upon the latest post by , whose newsletter I read because he is co-leader of , an online network (plus newsletter) that helped me develop my memoir.

In “The Book of Lists,” he wrote about why he makes lists. His essay prompted me to make a specific list about my long Hardrock weekend:

“Lists are a way of writing without the pressure of writing. A sentence demands something of you: syntax, a point. It demands that you know, more or less, what you’re trying to say before you say it. We sometimes freeze before the sentence because the sentence feels like a thought we’re not sure we can make.

A list asks for none of that, though. A list just asks, “What else?” It is an invitation. You can put anything on a list. You can contradict yourself from one line to the next. You can be incomplete. There’s no wrong way to make a list. There’s only the act of naming things, one after another, until you run out of names or run out of time. … The next time you have five minutes, don’t reach for your phone. Make a list instead. It can be anything.”

I made a list of every old friend/acquaintance with whom I interacted in Silverton while I was there for Hardrock (26 people). Then I annotated the list. I jotted down phrases and a few full sentences about how/when/where I connected with that person. A floodgate of memories opened.

Maybe there’s a story there. For now, I’m glad I have that list to document a network of relationships and shared experiences.

How and why Jared Campbell goes beyond

Last week, I had the opportunity to get to know Jared Campbell better because he, his wife Mindy, and their two daughters ages 9 and 12 needed a place to park their camper while visiting Telluride from their Park City home. When they asked if they could stay on our property, of course I said yes.

I’m a bit in awe not only of Jared’s mountain-running skills, but also of how they’re raising outdoorsy and athletic girls. At two events in recent years, I spotted their girls, Ruby and Phoebe, running laps up and down a mountainside, making it look effortless and fun.

The thing most people know about Jared is that he finished the notorious Barkley Marathons a record four times—the secretive orienteering footrace so difficult that only 20 people total have finished it in the event’s 40-year history, Jared more than any other. But there’s a lot more to him, and his ultra resume has much greater depth and breadth.

I had interviewed Jared, who’s 46, once before, for this 2020 UltraRunning magazine article on the Running Up For Air (RUFA) race series he founded to raise awareness and funds for nonprofits working on clean air and other environmental causes.

He first came on my radar back around 2014, when I read this unforgettable article by Matt Hart in Outside, “Your Brain on Pain,” about Jared and Matt becoming the fifth and sixth people to complete Nolan’s (14 summits of 14ers in the Sawatch Range under 60 hours), before the Nolan’s 14 became better known and set off an FKT frenzy in the ensuing years.

The year they did it, 2012, Jared became the second person ever (after Blake Wood) to complete Nolan’s 14, Barkley, and Hardrock in a single year, a distinction he still holds. But wait, there’s more. That same year, when Jared was turning 33, he also did the Wasatch 100 and a 100ish-mile linkup with about 37,000 feet of vert in the Wasatch range he created and named the Millwood 100. He wrote on his old blog why he came up with that route for him and others to attempt:

“Millwood presents an interesting opportunity for us to study the psychology of motivation. For many folks, the lead-up to a big race, the energy of competition, the obligation that comes with an entry fee and travel expenses, and simply being ‘visible’ to a broader audience seem to push folks to do things they wouldn’t normally do. What would happen with Millwood? It is arguably more challenging than Hardrock and with no fame/glory at the finish. No kissing the rock, no awards banquet, no belt buckle, no T-shirt, no UltraSignup score. So, why start? Why keep going? Why finish?”

You get the idea, Jared Campbell is an outlier in the sport of ultrarunning, as much an exceptional mountaineer as a runner.

When Jared arrived at our house, the first thing he did on his first morning here was scramble up a 13er outside our window that I’ve never attempted to ascend because I like a trail, and it has no established trail. Here’s a video clip he took up there:

He was drawn to it because it shares his name—Campbell’s Peak—and then he picked his way along the ridge to the gnarlier Dallas Peak. Then he dropped way the hell down to reach Blue Lake near Sneffels, then traversed the landscape to get over and up to Virginius Pass on the Hardrock course, then made his way back to our house—a self-made route of about 23 miles with about 9500 feet of elevation gain. That’s a typical “long run” for him, an outing that involves scrambling, peak-bagging, and route-finding as much as running.

I started by asking about his training for the two races on his calendar, High Five 100 and Dark Divide 100. I edited our conversation for length.

Me: I know about High Five [a next-level-difficult mountain 100 in the San Juan Mountains with an unmarked course summiting five 14ers and at least a half-dozen 13ers], but what’s Dark Divide, and how are you training for them?

Jared: “It’s a relatively new 100, east of Mount Rainier in the Cascades. I don’t know a whole lot about it either. Big sections are unsupported. Hopefully it’s kind of messy, because I always find that interesting, like when you don’t know if the aid station is set up yet [laughs]. …

“My favorite training is rolling out a map—nowadays it’s all digital—and coming up with some bizarre route that’s largely off course. And when you’re training for the High Five, thankfully, that approach of trying to stare at terrain on satellite imagery and old maps, and piecing together layers and looking at the terrain and trying to come up with a fairly efficient way to navigate it, it’s perfect training for the High Five. Your speed at something like that is a huge function of your ability to understand terrain. Is this scree field going to be something I can go down quickly? Or, can I tell from the satellite imagery if the scree is big enough that you have to tenuously walk down it? I just love that stuff.”

You ran Hardrock 10 times, between 2004 to 2015 [and won it in 2010 in 27:18]. Why did you stop, and do you miss it?

“I took a cue from my good friend Roch Horton [the Hardrocker best known for running the legendary Kroger’s Canteen aid station for many years], which was, run it for 10 years, then give back to it. … I definitely miss it, but I got into it really early before it really got popular. In 2004, Hardrock was viewed as this obscure thing—a hiker’s race—and runners didn’t want to do it because it was too much of a mountain race. And now look at it, it’s become one of the most sought-after races in the world for 100-mile trail runners. I feel really fortunate to have gotten into it at that stage and age in my life.”

Did you ever aspire to run Western States or other marquee 100s besides Hardrock?

“I love the history of Western States and what it is, but it never was my cup of tea, because I came into running from a climber’s perspective, so I naturally gravitated to Hardrock, which was the closest thing to a mountaineer’s race. Wasatch 100, which is close to me and carries a lot of history, I was into because it was the local race for where I live. But still, I was always an outsider.”

At 46, do you feel your body has changed, and have you modified your athleticism in any way, since your twenties and thirties?

“Not really. Look at Ludo [Ludovic Pommeret, the two-time defending champ and course-record holder at Hardrock], he’s 50, so I’m like, shit, I got plenty of time [laughs]. I have felt things change, but not necessarily physically. My life has gotten a lot busier than when I was 30. My body still feels similar, but when I do stuff has changed—the time of day. It’s early mornings or nights, when the girls are asleep. I have to be really intentional about when I run. I think because I run less now, I have fewer injuries also.”

Tell me about your work now. I know you’re a longtime environmentalist and mechanical engineer. When we talked before, you were focused on building net-positive homes [that create more energy than they consume] and on wireless communications. What exactly do you do now as a partner at Endurance 28?

“For many years, something inside me was like, I want to put my time and energy professionally into helping innovators—engineers and scientists—who are coming up with solutions. …. I met this incredible woman who started Endurance 28 and this awesome little team, and it’s a venture capital group. A lot of people would see that as just an investment entity, but it’s really unique. It invests in three areas, one of which is climate and environmental solutions, so I joined to help that part of the investments. … To me, it’s one of the most uplifting things you can imagine. Venture as an asset class or industry is maybe not that interesting on its own, because a lot of it is about financial returns, but in the climate space—listening to young founders make pitches, who are motivated to change the world, and willing to take this massive risk and start a business—there’s this fire in them to do something. For me, it’s all about trying to see what are the ideas out there and what are the teams that have been assembled to tackle climate problems, whether air quality or water and food issues.

“Part of this chapter in my life is about, how do I find the right technology, the right people, and right market to find things that can scale huge? I would love for every home to be built to be net positive. I would love for food to be produced in a sustainable way. If you put your business hat on, things have to make sense on a business scale to be able to propagate in a way that makes sense.”

I love hearing your excitement. We’re talking under a smoky sky in a dried-out landscape. Given the reality of the accelerating climate change we’re experiencing, and given the reality that your senator is Mike Lee, how do you maintain optimism or stave of hopelessness as you’re raising kids in this reality?

“If you put your local glasses on—in my case, you’ll see Utah and Mike Lee—and look at a lot decisions being made on a local level, it’s very depressing. And if you zoom out and look at the United States, probably even more depressing. But if you zoom out and look globally, what’s happening now is so cool from a clean-energy standpoint. There is such a rapid acceleration toward clean energy in other countries. The U.S. was always behind, but we’re falling much further behind. But that will change. And if you look globally, the speed with which countries are completely transitioning to an electrified ecosystem with wind, water, solar, and battery systems, it is so cool. So you just have to put your USA hat on the shelf and ask on a global level, is humanity progressing in the right direction ? And the answer absolutely is yes.”

Even with AI and the demand for data centers? To me, AI is dystopian in terms of what it’s ushering in. It’s frightening.

“Yeah, it is. It’s easy to feel that way, and I do frequently as well. It’s partly why I’ve decided to jump into the space where I’m listening to a couple of pitches a day from young founders who haven’t become disillusioned like all of us. It’s uplifting. If you surround yourself with humans who are optimistic and solving problems, and not spending too many mental neurons on the state of doom and gloom, it’s a great thing.”

That segues into parenting, because you have to be optimistic to raise kids. I’ve seen your girls run segments of RUFA, and I’ve seen photos of them climbing. They’re pretty extraordinary athletically and outdoorsy. Can you talk about how you and Mindy are raising them, and the values are you trying to raise them with?

“Thankfully, Mindy and I love to do the same things with our free time outside, so we’re either climbing or kayaking or running, so these kids are getting pulled along for this ride. Both my girls, at 4 weeks old, were on the summit of Grandeur Peak. You normalize it for them—going out on a long hike, participating or volunteering at a race—and it’s just something they’ve grown up doing. Tying it to the climate side of things, they’ve grown up knowing that of course your house is powered by the sun, of course you plug your car in and it’s charged by electrons that are collected from the sun. … By being outside, you naturally care. If our elected leaders don’t have that connection, then we’ll make terrible decisions. As a parent, one of the things you can do is raise kids who really care and appreciate and respect the environment. I hope I’m creating two little change-makers.”

Thank you, Jared, for taking the time to talk to me—and to inspire us all.

How to get your head and heart around Hardrock

If you’re a new subscriber, you may wonder why I’m writing about Hardrock for two weeks in a row. You may not even know what Hardrock is. Dear reader, I am obsessed with the storied 100-mile mountain run in the San Juan Mountains near my home.

Readers who followed earlier iterations of my blog have had to suffer through fifteen years of me romanticizing Hardrock, ever since my first Hardrock pacing gig in 2011. I am not going to explain my love for it here. If you want to know why Hardrock is such a big deal and so meaningful to me, read this story I wrote last year about what it’s all about, followed by my report of finishing the damn thing after 46 hours that turned me inside-out.

I also invite you to watch this video I made, following a talk I gave, about the history of the Hardrock route:

I also recommend this doc by Jeff Pelletier that shows the visually stunning route:

For this year’s event, you can go to iRunFar’s preview for an overview of the top competitors.

I’ll be offline for at least 24 hours while setting up and working the remote hike-in Engineer Aid Station, at the halfway point, Friday though Saturday midday, so I won’t be able to watch the livestream. Instead, I’ll get to see the runners up close as they come through and I serve them!

I’ll be back next week with some thoughts on how it all unfolded. (Yes, that means I’ll write about it for three weeks in a row, sorry not sorry.) Fingers crossed now that it will unfold in a safe and healthy way for all!

I’ll leave you with some photos and video clips that show the weather extremes and shifting air quality here during the past week:

Hot temps and smoke-filled sky late on Saturday, July 4:

Finally, the wonderful but too-brief rain yesterday! I heard someone in a store say, “Something weird is happening outside. Water is falling from the sky.”

In a split second, I recalled the wind shaking our house all day into the night, making the beams groan and windows rattle. Wind bent the trees sideways. Wind ripped the petals off the flowers I had planted just last Friday and flattened their stems. Wind desiccated the ground, which on Thursday collected puddles from a precious, too-brief storm. Wind pushed smoke from the west over the ridge and turned the sun temporarily orange.

I love a cool breeze but hate this warm wind.

I grabbed my phone—violating my practice to start the morning reading a book, not scrolling—and checked for updates on the Ouray fire, plus the big fires near the Utah border that killed three federal firefighters, plus the blaze near Leadville and the new, horrific Pueblo County conflagration (see this CNN clip on it).

This is the reality of life in Colorado now.

But outside my window, I viewed another reality of clear blue sky framing mountains, and I wanted to pretend that everything was fine. We are fortunate here, for now. The air quality is normal, the sky is blue (too cloudless), and all the fires are happening over the mountain ridges. Only a streak of white to the west hints at smoke over there. In past seasons’ fires, the smoke has been thick enough in our area to obscure the mountains. (As of this morning, Wednesday, the sky looks and smells smokier.)

I engaged in obsessive checking of the Watch Duty App and the county sheriff Instagram accounts for fire status, and then I checked the weather apps, upset but resigned to the fact that the bumps of blue indicating precipitation next week have shrunk, turning the forecast of seasonal monsoons into a tease and threatening dry lighting that could spark more fires.

The Ouray fire, named the Gold Mountain Fire, broke out Saturday afternoon about a mile north of Ouray proper, which is an hour by car from where I live in Telluride and over the mountain range to the northeast. The blaze started above a road I know well. It’s Dexter Creek Road, aka County Road 14/14A, on the hillside above the highway next to the Welcome to Ouray sign.

It’s the road I add to my longer runs in winter (when trails are inaccessible due to snow), when I run the relatively flat county road that connects the towns of Ridgway and Ouray and add on County Road 14/14A for a big hill climb. The road leads to lovely log homes around a small lake and trails where the rough old mining road ends.

This is the road where firefighters are holding a line to keep the fire from spreading west toward the neighborhood directly across the highway and south toward town. My friend Christina and her husband Justin live in that neighborhood, called Whispering Pines, directly across from the fire. Their home and their neighbors, in Level 1 pre-evacuation status, are OK so far. When the wind turns violent, I worry about flying embers reaching them. I also worry about fire spreading to ranch homes with horses and livestock northeast of Ouray.

I know that periodic fires rejuvenate forests, so letting the wilderness areas burn and focusing efforts on protecting structures, and people and livestock, makes sense. But the wildfire spread is so damn scary in this era of climate change and drought. (I urge you to read this latest post by environmental reporter on the fires’ causes and outlook.)

What does the fire mean for the Hardrock Hundred?

The Hardrock Hundred is supposed to start in Silverton on Friday, July 10. Many of the runners, their crew, and fans are in the region already. I took my name off the waitlist (as explained in last week’s post), but I plan to spend this coming Wednesday through Sunday in Silverton to be part of the scene and to work the remote Engineer Aid Station overnight.

I and others are wondering if Hardrock will happen or be canceled. Runners like my friend Monica Ochs, who has waited a decade to earn a spot in Hardrock, arrived here more than a week ago to acclimate to the trails and altitude. She and others would be devastated to have the run canceled.

To be clear, no decision has been made, and I have not talked to the run director Dale Garland, so I don’t have any inside info about the status. Dale and his run committee are super busy, so I don’t want to bug them, and the situation is changing daily. Hardrock posted a vague Instagram post Tuesday saying, “Hardrock is aware of and monitoring the wildfire situation in southwest Colorado and the San Juan Mountains. Hardrock puts the safety of participants, volunteers, and surrounding communities first.”

I’m on the fence about whether Hardrock should go forward or cancel, but it makes sense to me to wait-and-see because we could get rain in the forecast around July 7 – 10 that would improve the whole situation. Here’s my “hot” take on the situation, along with a map to show the geography of the route:

Why Hardrock should go forward unless conditions are dangerous the morning of July 10:

• The fire is moving northeast, away from the Hardrock route, and the route is not threatened.

• Silverton and the town of Ouray (south of the fire) are fine now with good air quality. Both towns depend on the economic boost from visitors.

• Hardrock runners have made travel plans and prepared for months. They deserve to have their shot at the run unless and until a call is made at the last moment about safety. Dale had to make this call last year, when we woke up on the morning of Hardrock’s start to an orange sky. A fire had broken out the day before (see photo above from Handies Peak). But it was in the distance, and the air quality was not too terrible. Runners were given the option to defer their entry to the following year if they didn’t want to risk running in poor air quality. Conditions improved rather than worsened during the 48 hours of the event. I believe the committee made the right call last year to start the event after weighing all the circumstances, and I trust them to make the right, safe call again.

• It may rain next week in the days leading up to Hardrock, which would make everything better (except potentially flooding Highway 550 if a monsoon downpour triggered a slide onto the highway from the burned hillside).

The counterargument for why Hardrock should cancel, probably sooner rather than later:

• Resources across the region are stretched. People (and lightning) cause fires. More people in the backcountry who are camping and recreating inevitably increase the risk, even with fire restrictions in place that prohibit campfires. If a fire broke out in the Silverton or Telluride areas from human activity, the resources to fight it and evacuate people would be stretched extra thin. It could be catastrophic.

• Although rains may come next week, the forecast calls for more heat and wind between now and the Fourth of July weekend. Visitors should be discouraged from camping and hiking around the region during high-fire-danger days.

• Highway 550 just north of Ouray is closed, and officials are prohibiting through traffic. That puts the whole Hardrock transportation loop (i.e. driving from Ouray to Telluride/Ophir) out of service, although a long detour to the south is available. [UPDATE as of Wednesday afternoon: Hwy 550 just reopened!]

Considering all those factors, I advocate a yellow-light proceed-with-caution stance and hope they delay a decision on canceling until much closer to July 10. If you visit this region to run/hike and camp, please be extra smart and careful—no open flames anywhere, no smoking, no parking a hot vehicle near dry grass!

If Highway 550 continues to be closed or has one-way traffic control for emergency vehicles just north of Ouray during Hardrock, I would recommend prohibiting runners’ crew from going to the Ophir and Telluride aid stations as a way to limit traffic (and discouraging them from going over the shortcut of Ophir Pass). In this year’s clockwise direction, when Ophir and Telluride aid stations are in the first quarter of the loop, crew is not really necessary there; runners can rely on aid station volunteers and drop bags. Keep spectator and crew traffic between Ouray and Silverton, in my view.

In any case, I feel for runners who face this uncertainty, especially those taking the time and money to travel from afar and who have their hearts set on a special tour of the San Juan Mountains. I also don’t envy Dale and his run committee for having to navigate the dangerous conditions and uncertainty. Race directors for ultras across the West now regularly cope with fire as a major risk. I imagine the Ouray 100, scheduled July 17, will be canceled or severely re-routed because a branch of their route (the Bridge of Heaven segment) has been scorched by the fire.

What’s your take on the situation? Please comment below.

A glorious Western States Endurance Run and a golden finish

On a much happier note, the notoriously hot Western States Endurance Run 100-miler last Saturday in the mountains from Olympic Valley to Auburn, California, enjoyed unusually cool temps and went off problem-free. Like tens of thousands of others, I was glued to the livestream and runners’ trackers.

Rather than recap anything about the race (you can find copious commentary on the Freetrail and Singletrack podcasts and the iRunFar and Trail Runner sites), I recommend learning more about the two champs with these two pieces:

• Coach , whose weekly Substack I read religiously (and thankfully, he reads mine too!) had a coach’s dream experience of coaching the come-from-behind Western States champ and course record-setter Vincent Bouillard. Mario wrote about how the race unfolded for him as coach and for Vincent, and he links to a piece about Vincent’s training. It highlights the value of a personal coach-athlete relationship and also the time-tested pillars of a solid training approach (e.g. consistency, alternating hard/easy days, making rest part of training)— things that AI and optimization hacks can’t replace. Read his story here.

• As I followed the woman’s extraordinary course-record-setting champ Jennifer Lichter, running her 100-mile debut, I kept thinking about a moving podcast interview with her from last August by Dylan Bowman on Freetrail. Jennifer is the first Latina to win Western States. You may have wondered, what’s the deal with her coming from a white family in Wisconsin? The interview reveals how she was an orphan on the streets of Bogota, Colombia, until adoption as a preteen. It’s incredible. Listen here.

On Sunday, a little before 12 noon Mountain Time, I tuned into the “Golden Hour” when the final finishers made it to the track in Auburn before the 30-hour cutoff. It’s always a tear-jerker to see them struggle and squeak under the cutoff.

I didn’t expect to know any of the back-of-the-pack runners. But then, five minutes before the cutoff, I heard Billy Yang announce, “Mark Tanaka!”

Oh my god, it’s Mark! Somehow, I had overlooked that my old runner-friend Mark was running States. Way to go, Mark! But, I also thought, Why are you finishing near the cutoff of the Golden Hour?! followed by, If I ever run States again, will I too finish with only minutes to spare?

Mark, who’s 59, and I shared a lot of miles in ultras back in the early 2010s, back when we both were a lot more speedy. In 2017, I paced and crewed him in Hardrock. He’s an ER doctor who has a superhuman ultra resume, and earlier this year, he was admitted into the exclusive ultrarunning club of 100 x 100—one of 37 runners who’ve run 100 or more 100-milers.

I got in touch with Mark on Monday to congratulate him and ask about his experience. He had run Western States once before in 2015, finishing in 22:42, and at the time he had thought that was relatively slow and he should’ve finished around 21 hours. His 100-mile PR is 16:28:25 from the 2007 Kettle Moraine.

I wanted to know, how did it feel to finish States in 29:55:05, facing potential cutoffs at aid stations along the way? I, too, want to run States again in my lifetime (which is why I’m running Javelina in October as a qualifier). I finished my one and only States in 2016 in 23:44, earning the coveted sub-24 silver buckle. Will I be able to psychologically handle going so much slower and chasing cutoffs if I ever get to run it again?

Mark shared with me that he entered the race sleep-deprived and consequently struggled more than anticipated. But it was worth it:

“The last five minutes was quite a climax, but I guess the whole day, despite some of the physical suffering inherent in these events, was a repeated affirmation that what I was doing was admirable and deserving of everyone’s attention and support. I really felt the love. Never did I feel like anyone was thinking, ‘What’s taking him so long today?’ though some people must have thought that. It was all positive and encouraging and condition-less. And I’m sure it was like that for everyone running the race, this year and all years back. What was different was this time, I felt and appreciated it more. When you find yourself in the back of the pack, and there is a chance you’ll get cut if anything goes bad, every little bit helps. I think I needed more of that support, and for that reason felt it more strongly than in the past when I wasn’t running to survive. I felt more appreciation for being able to be out there, feeling more connected to this wonderful community, and felt that more often and more intensely during this race than any race before. My eyes watered up several times during the race. The joy of circling the track was much greater Sunday than in 2015 before sunrise. I can’t overstate it, it was so intense.”

Well, his statement sure made my eyes water. I’m deeply inspired to hear from him that you can feel more appreciation and support, and greater intensity, by spending longer going slower on the course. It reinforces my desire to cheer for, support, and respect those toward the back of the pack. In some ways, they have it harder than the frontrunners who finish in half the time.

Now I definitely want to follow in Mark’s footsteps and go for it one more time, if given the opportunity. Thank you, Mark, and congrats!

Hi folks, thanks for being here. This week I bring you a race report. If you’re caught up in the excitement leading up to this Saturday’s Western States Endurance Run 100-miler—as a spectator, crew member, or one of the lucky chosen to run it—then don’t miss the section at the end.

So much went right and stayed positive with my 50-mile race Saturday, the San Juan Solstice 50 in the San Juan Mountains near little Lake City. I’m happy I did it, proud of my finish, and will share how much I love this event and why.

Yet, it wasn’t a confidence-builder. Instead, it made me more daunted and uncertain about doubling the distance for 100-milers on calendar. While it’s normal—even cliché—to finish an ultra and swear, “never again,” only to find yourself signing up for another one 24 hours later, my ambivalence and doubt are lingering longer than usual, even as soreness fades and blisters heal.

I’ll explain by starting at the end, at Sunday morning’s community awards breakfast.

A couple hundred people gathered on the grassy square of the town park for a breakfast prepared by volunteers. Historic buildings from the late 1800s, with brightly painted facades and hanging flower baskets, bordered the square. Lake City—located south of Gunnison and east of Silverton, nestled near five 14ers—is a picture-postcard throwback of a mining town that seems to have escaped the growth pressures and Aspen-ization affluenza of mountain towns like Telluride. The handful of Lake City restaurants are nothin’ fancy, and its retro cabins for rent hearken back to my parents’ decor. (My tiny cabin had a wall-mounted rotary phone.) The place seems preserved in time, as does the ultra itself, which started in 1995.

Sitting with other runners from Telluride, listening to the emcee talk about how roughly half the town’s 400 residents volunteered for the event and numerous extended family members have run the race over the decades, I experienced the warmth of community and admiration for “old-school” ultras that make every single runner feel special and raise funds for local causes rather than existing primarily for profit and competition. This is why I choose not to run races by UTMB, because I’d rather support homegrown independent races like SJS50.

Long way of saying, I was so grateful to be part of this event and grateful to be recognized as one of the 242 finishers who made it under the 16-hour cutoff. I also appreciated and felt supported by the young, speedy Telluride cohort, which included Isabella Poulos who placed second in a blazing 9:44, all of whom encouraged an older and slower runner like me.

This is why I run these races, I thought, to see these places and be a part of this community.

And yet, the morning following my finish, my lungs burned from the stress of heavy breathing in thin air. My lower back and legs ached. My fatigued brain seemed to process everything at half-speed, unable to recall names or answer simple questions quickly. The tasty food didn’t taste right because my stomach and palate were off. I felt depleted and aged—even though the ultra took me less than 15 hours (14:48) and I didn’t run through the night. It was “only” 50 miles! No way in hell I could go through two nights for Hardrock three weeks from now, I thought, contemplating the slim but not impossible chance I’d get off Hardrock’s waitlist shortly before it begins July 10.

I’m even doubting my ability and desire to persevere through the San Juan Softie 100 on August 14. That 100-miler has a 38-hour cutoff at 8 p.m., so I would finish before going well past the second sunset, but still. I don’t know if I have the desire and determination to make it.

I didn’t used to feel this way. I used to have more stamina and mojo for the prospect of running through the night and into the next day. But at the end of SJS50, I kept thinking how relieved I was to be done before dark. An all-day outing for 50 miles felt like plenty.

A voice kept repeating in my head—a passage from a podcast I listened to on Friday as I drove to Lake City. It was The Trailhead episode interviewing exercise scientist Nick Tiller, PhD, whose column I have long read and admired in UltraRunning. Ten minutes into the episode, he good-naturedly talked about how ultras aren’t actually good for us, but why we love them anyway.

“There’s no question, ultrarunning is not good for you. … As far as exercising for health and wellness and physical condition, it’s very difficult to say where the optimum range is, but it’s probably around an hour of exercise a day. … Periodically going out and running for 24 to 48 hours [i.e. for a 100-miler] and evoking this extreme oxidative stress, inflammation, muscle injury, cardiovascular strain, and airway inflammation and digestive distress and all these kinds of things—yeah, that’s definitely not good for you.”

Well, shit. I’ve always known his point to be true on some level, but still, it’s hard to hear it put so bluntly. If I profess to care about my health and longevity, then why am I still doing extra-long ultras instead of being content with trail races in the half-marathon to 50K range?

And yet, I was glad to be in Lake City. Glad to run the glorious ribbon of trail above treeline and elated that I could, in fact, run a lot of it. Glad for all the good conversations with other runners. And, glad to be done.

How my race unfolded and how I met my goals

My race got off to a good start—but it didn’t for a few others. We lined up on a town street and started as a stampede on a backroad to a trailhead. The street had speed bumps, and in the 5 a.m. darkness, I witnessed a couple of runners trip on those speed bumps only about 100 feet from the start line and fall like bowling pins on the asphalt. One runner behind me face-planted, and his or her fingertips grazed the backs of my calves—a feeling that haunted me all morning.

Witnessing others fall at the start, and later, seeing others cope with nausea and dehydration, I reminded myself, “You’re doing fine” and “could be worse.”

In last week’s post, I listed five goals for the San Juan Solstice 50, and I met all but one—the important first one. These were the goals and how I did:

Get to the start line well rested and well prepared: I was not well rested due to a week of poor sleep. In the days leading up to it, I got only about six hours of interrupted sleep nightly, not the eight of solid sleep I needed, because our dogs barked in the middle of the night and, early Thursday morning, my husband had to wake at 3:15 a.m. to catch a shuttle to the airport to fly to his parents’ home in California since his mom was in the hospital. When I woke in the middle of the night most nights, anxious thoughts prevented me from falling back asleep. So I got to the start line feeling a bit worn out and sleep deprived from the get-go. I was well prepared logistically, and my training was adequate since early May’s Quad Rock 50, but I really wished I had more stored energy from better sleep.

Be smart about hydration and fueling to prevent bonking, dehydration, and nausea: Nailed this! On a hot, dry day in the high-altitude strong sun, I did well staying hydrated with the right amount of electrolytes (at least one 500ml bottle every hour, filled with one to two scoops of Tailwind equalling 300 - 600mg sodium per bottle). I kept sweating and was able to pee every couple of hours. My fingers did not swell like sausages, and my stomach did not turn from nausea. I took in about 50 - 60 grams of carbs per hour from the Tailwind plus gels or chews (the mild Precision Fuel gel being my favorite) and then ate more at aid stations, such as a full avo/cheese tortilla rollup at mile 31. I never had gut distress. This is a huge accomplishment for me, especially since so many runners were dehydrating or puking. I also stayed cool enough by wearing a sun-protection layer and using the bandana around my neck like a washcloth to get wet at every water crossing, soaking my long sleeves and cooling my head and neck.

Avoid trip-and-falls and turned ankles by staying focused rather than spacing out: I did not fall or turn an ankle, hooray. I stayed motivated and focused by challenging myself to average under 18 minutes/mile. When my pace slipped into the mid-20-minutes/mile on steep uphills or from spending extra time at aid stations, then I’d work to earn back minutes on the runnable miles to get my average pace lower. Here’s the elevation profile to show why this slow average pace wasn’t as easy to achieve as it might sound. Even on the runnable parts midway, being in such high altitude for a prolonged time—through blasts of strong wind—made running feel anemic.

Be friendly to everyone around me and thank the volunteers: I was in a social good mood with others and loved talking to three women whom I know from sharing miles at other ultras—Amanda Grimes, Barbara Olmer, and Shannon Meredith—during the first big climb. Later, on the Continental Divide section, I connected with a younger guy, Tim Ashurst, running his first 50. He happens to live in Telluride but we had never met, although we have mutual friends. I enjoyed mentoring him and helping him at an aid station. I made sure to thank all the volunteers for their home-prepped food.

Stay positive in the final 10 miles; replace discouragement and discomfort with self-compassion and a sense of humor: This was the toughest goal to meet, because the final segment—which looks relatively easy on the elevation profile—actually is tough due to the tangled, rocky trail that goes through an aspen and cottonwood forest. The two prior times I ran San Juan Solstice, I fell apart in these final 10 miles from fatigue and allergy-induced wheezing from all the pollen. (I took a non-drowsy Claritin this time, which helped.) I stayed steady on the final segment but definitely slowed down and hurt.

I met my goal of staying positive, however, thanks to a wonderful turn of events. An old ultra friend, Monica Ochs, showed up to the region since she finally got into Hardrock, and she told me the day prior that she could pace me in the final section. What a gift! Having Monica at my side boosted my spirits immeasurably, in spite of my legs, feet, and lower back aching intensely following the steep descent from the Divide section. I could barely pick up my knees and feet to run and instead shuffle-jogged and hiked to the finish.

When I felt twinges of embarrassment or frustration from my fatigued, slow slog, I told myself that it was good for Monica to witness my state of decline and soreness, since she’ll experience a similar level of slow pace and fatigue when she does Hardrock in less than three weeks.

I connected with Monica, who’s my age and lives in Washington state, back in 2009 after she placed second and I placed third in the Napa Valley Marathon. I followed her through the years and shared lodging when we both participated in Jason Koop’s ultra training camp in 2018. Then I wrote this story about her after her comeback from open-heart surgery for an aortic aneurysm repair. Being with her reminded me, for the umpteenth time, how long-distance running sparks the most satisfying relationships, because shared trail time fosters the best, most candid conversations. I’m extremely grateful to Monica and excited for her first Hardrock!

I reached the finish line only about a half-hour slower than the two prior times I did San Juan Solstice 50, my heart full as my body ached. I’m still sorting out the conflicted feelings I have about wanting to train for and run these events and also wanting to protect my body from the pain and potential damage they cause.

What’s next, then?

I’m going to take my name off the Hardrock waitlist. I don’t want the uncertainty of possibly being called to jump into the event only days, or even an hour, before it starts, if a spot opens due to another runner’s injury or no-show. My heart is not in it, nor do I feel prepared for it. I’d rather stick to my plan of volunteering at Hardrock’s Engineer aid station and supporting the runners who come through it. And, I’d rather take the next seven weeks to train and plan for San Juan Softie 100 in August. Yes, I want to do that—even though I lack confidence—because I’ve never been on that big trail loop, and the people and scene around the event appeal to me. So I’m going for that.

Many thanks to SJS50 race director Jerry Gray (who subscribes to this newsletter) and all the volunteers who made Saturday’s event exceptional and who carry on its tradition!

For your Western States Endurance Run fever

It’s the week when we collectively get hyped about the Western States Endurance Run and feel FOMO if we’re not involved in some way or hanging out in Olympic Valley (the race start) or Auburn (the finish). Here are a few resources I recommend to enhance your appreciation or feed the hype:

• (aka aidstationfireball) compiled this list of the best films about Western States. I’ve watched most and highly recommend them. If you have time for only three on the list, my picks are: Race for the Soul, a 25-year-old doc that shows oddball badass runners back in the day when they made do with fanny packs and when the sport was an extreme outlier; Life in a Day, spotlighting four top women in the 2016 edition (I have a soft spot for that film because that’s the year I ran it, and I have a small cameo); and of course, Unbreakable, the 2010 showdown featuring a young Kilian. What’s you favorite film on this list? Comment below.

• For history, read my review of Second Sunrise by John Trent, and then buy the book!

• And lastly, while I don’t follow Freetrail closely, their “Top 10 Storylines” video with a Western States preview, released Monday, is worth watching or listening to, thanks to the smart commentary by Dylan Bowman, Tim Tollefson, and Corrine Malcom. Watch the first couple of minutes, and then you’ll better appreciate this spoof by @dylisims_:

Best wishes and the best vibes to three subscribers to this newsletter who are running Western States on Saturday: Christina Vincent, , and my past Run Rabbit Run 100 pacer Amy Gordon (who’s also in Hardrock two weeks later!!). Am I missing anyone? If you read this newsletter and are in States, let us know in the comments below.

One final request

This is the final week of my fundraiser for two youth-oriented nonprofits, Telluride Rotary Club and True North Youth Program. I’m about $300 short of my goal. Please learn more about this fundraiser and consider donating to it by visiting my fundraising page before Sunday, June 28. Donations of any size are greatly appreciated!

Thank you for reading this far! Please let me know you were here by liking the post with the heart, or by commenting.

Happy summer solstice (a few days late). We’re fully into summer here in o…

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Welcome back, and welcome new subscribers. Many of you found your way here after reading my story published in The Guardian on Monday, “Midlife is the perfect time to start trail running — here’s how.” Thank you for subscribing!

I’ll start with the story behind that story. Why did I pitch it?

More times than I can recall, a woman (and sometimes a man) in my peer group has marveled at the ultras I do and said some variation of, “I don’t know how you run those trails,” or, “I never could do that.” Occasionally, I hear this from younger Millennials too.

I gently push back, “Oh, I bet you could build up to it,” or, “If I can stick with it and do it, anyone can,” and I really believe it. They don’t realize how far they can go if they start slowly, carefully, and gradually build their endurance. So I wanted to write an article for the mainstream that showed how to do that.

I also wrote it to inspire more adults to get into trail running because I hope to keep the burgeoning sport of trail/ultra a welcoming place for us oldsters. Ever since I started lining up for trail races a quarter-century ago, grizzled old-timers commanded respect for their experience, grit, and weathered style, be it their cutoff jeans, faded shirts, or homemade hand-held water bottles with the handle made from duct tape.

When I go to ultras now, I still see a good number of others with the saggy skin and graying hair that indicate we share the over-50 “grandmaster” category. But we’re swarmed by runners half our age.

The sport seems younger, faster, and more professional than ever. Gen Z young adults who transitioned from collegiate XC to top finishes at 50Ks have little knowledge of the trail-blazing ultrarunners who came before them. They learn about the sport through influencers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, not UltraRunning magazine. Their social media posts convey a young-gun cockiness because they want to get noticed, get sponsored, and get results.

Ultrarunning’s traditional, more humble ethos—to respect and feel awe for the environment, build community, welcome and mentor others, and cheer for the back of the pack as much as the frontrunners—could fade away, overshadowed by an egocentric competitive vibe, unless more people carry on that generous and caring spirit, which I believe the elders in the sport are inclined to do.

Last weekend, I was happy to see that old-school ethos on display at the inaugural Bay Area 100, which I followed online since old friends put it on, and I used to run those trails when we lived in the East Bay.

Check out this Instagram clip that spotlights this guy Troy, age 58, who I used to run near at marathons in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I love his laid-back, positive vibe. I also admire the person questioning him, Bree Lambert-Sanders, now 57 (my age), a fierce but friendly competitor who used to beat me at ultras more than a decade ago. She’s volunteering and giving back to the sport now. Both Troy and Bree are role-modeling longevity and generosity in ultrarunning. This is the spirit I’m talking about and the vibe I want to help promote. Kudos to the Bay Area 100 for attracting as many older as younger runners, and for showcasing and celebrating them as much as the younger top competitors.

Building belief that you still can do it

More generally, with that article and through this newsletter, I want to build belief in others—and in myself—that we can keep going, doing, and trying new things. Slowing down as we age, which is normal, doesn’t have to trigger fading away and quitting.

Facing a 50-mile race this coming Saturday and not feeling very confident about it, I had to give myself a pep talk this week that I got this rather than dwell on my younger self being “better.” My younger self was different, not necessarily better, and I want to reframe aging as evolution, not decline.

Last Saturday, a Facebook memory photo hit hard and triggered all my insecurities about aging and fading. The photo is a silly selfie from mid-June of 2016 expressing heat and fatigue as I sat in my heated van for greater heat adaptation following a hot, long training run in advance of the Western States Endurance Run 100-miler. I felt a pang of wanting to turn back the clock and be the woman in that photo again.

In it, I have a UD hat because I was a brand ambassador for Ultimate Direction. I’m wearing a Tarawera 100K Buff because I had traveled to New Zealand and set my 100K PR there. The shirt is from the Marin Ultra Challenge 50K that I had finished in 5 hours that spring, one of the top women—more than an hour faster than I ran it this past spring. I was sitting in my hipster VW Eurovan with the pop-top, which I no longer own. And my face and neck had hardly any wrinkles! I look so much older now.

For a brief but intense moment, I missed being that fortysomething woman at her peak in the sport.

I had to remind myself that I love my life and myself now as is. A decade ago, I wasn’t sure where my husband and I and our kids—who were in high school then—would end up. I feared turning 50 and going through menopause, as if I’d turn into a dried-up and marginalized old lady overnight, and I carried a lot of anxiety about our family’s next phase. In the decade that followed, we built our home here in southwest Colorado, and my kids had positive college experiences and found their independence in adulthood. I’m proud of all I accomplished in that decade. And, I’m still running—not as competitively, and not as high volume, but as determinedly and positively.

Reframing goals

The inner talk and reality check described above is helping me approach this Saturday’s San Juan Solstice 50 with more celebration than anxiety, as if it’s an exciting mini-vacation and not a test. It’s a hell of a tough course, with nearly a quarter of the miles at extra-high elevation (around or above 12,000 feet) along the Continental Divide Trail. I have done it twice before, in 2018 and 2022, both times suffering greatly in the final 10 miles and taking more than 14 hours to finish.

Earlier this season, my automatic thought about the race was, “I need to break 14 hours this time.” Why? Why do I put that pressure on myself and ignore the reality that given my objectively slower pace now, I’ll likely struggle to break 15 hours? Why do I care about time, beyond the need to make the cutoffs to aid stations?

So I have set the following process-oriented goals and will be satisfied if I meet them, regardless of finishing time:

• get to the start line well rested and well prepared

• be smart about hydration and fueling to prevent bonking, dehydration, and nausea

• stay positive in final 10 miles; replace discouragement and discomfort with self-compassion and a sense of humor

• avoid trip-and-falls and turned ankles by staying focused rather than spacing out

• be friendly to everyone around me and thank the volunteers

If I can do those things—especially stay positive rather than dwelling on discomfort and self-pity in the final 10 miles—then I will feel good even if I have to put on my headlamp and finish in the dark close to the event’s 16-hour time limit.

I’m going to re-read the conversation I had with my ultra friend after our last 50-milers and stoke my desire to be out there and to finish proud.

Reading and listening recs

• I discovered Rebecca Rusch’s “What’s the Rusch?” show thanks to her interview with . It’s a great conversation that touches on some of the themes above—evolving as a competitor, accepting wherever you’re at now, and striving to be more present and playful. Now I’m eager to listen to some archived episodes of this show too.

• Yes, I’m recommending Your Diet Sucks again because their episode on “Why Am I So Hungry?” is fascinating and well-reported as always.

• The Substack writes about the business and culture of trail/ultra running. I usually don’t care much about brand news, but this story on the upstart brand Terignota—which is lower cost for admirable reasons, not merely cheap—captivated me and prompted me to buy a few items to test them out.

Finally, my friends Cristal and Amy have rebranded their women’s trail camp as Traverse Trail Camps and opened registration for their next camp, September 30 - October 4, in the beautiful high-desert Four Corners region in southwest Colorado. I attended their Sedona camp in early 2025 and highly recommend it. It’s beginner-friendly, for all ages and levels.

Thanks again for being here. I welcome comments if anything in this post resonated with you, and if you’re new here, feel free to introduce yourself.

I’m hosting the monthly paid-subscriber Zoom chat tomorrow; if you’d like an invitation to the monthly meetup, plus occasional bonus posts, please consider upgrading your subscription to the supporter level.

We’re Zooming this coming week! Please drop into the Zoom chat on Thursday, June 18, 5pm …

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That all happened for me last week as I pushed pause on regular life to go back to Ojai, in Southern California, for my 40th high school reunion with the class of 1986. For me, it’s more than a high school reunion because I grew up there, on the campus of Thacher School, as a faculty kid and met my future husband there. My grandpa taught there for three decades, my dad was a student there and later worked there, my kids went there too, and I served on the board for nearly a decade in my forties. It connects our generations and holds my origin story.

For us, it became a family reunion too as my daughter celebrated her 10th reunion and her engagement party, and my son—who now works at the school—was on the job there, so I got to witness him in his role as a leader and guide. My big brother also showed up for his 50th reunion.

It’s fitting our hotel was called Su Nido (Spanish for “your nest”). The town, Ojai, traces its name back to the Native Chumash word for “nest,” and the oval-shaped east-west valley ringed by coastal mountains forms a giant amphitheater-like nest. Of course, I thought about how I had left the nest, and my kids had too, and now I am an “empty-nester.”

But I had no sense of loss or pangs of sadness about my kids’ independence and time’s passage, except when missing my dad, who was in the class of ‘51 and hence would’ve been there for his 75th reunion if he were still alive at 92. Instead, I felt fulfillment and ease, as if cradled in that nest, as if I’m finally settled.

If we’re lucky, we arrive at a certain mellowness in the later phase of midlife—once we’re past our kids’ pivotal adolescent and college years, past the pain and goodbyes involved with caregiving our aging parents, past the need to prove ourselves professionally, past the worry about financial stability—and we can exhale and think, “My job here is done,” and soak in the present. That’s how I felt. More than nostalgic, content.

We gathered on the first morning at the stables, the place I spent almost every early morning and after-school afternoon of my youth and practiced a homegrown form of equine therapy to cope with family conflict and peer pressures. The school has a horse program that has been its defining characteristic since its founding in 1889, and now my son is a key person in that program as a riding instructor and farrier.

The heady fragrance of horse manure, dust, and chaparral—the perfume of my youth—put me at ease, as did the sounds of horse hooves and the feel of every second-nature interaction with a horse. My daughter beamed as her fiancé—our new family member—held the reins and settled in his saddle with confidence, as if he had passed our family’s litmus test for acceptance. My son, on a palomino, guided us up a trail where I looked to one side to remember the night of October 5, 1984, when my husband and I had snuck off there to a clearing to look at the starlit nighttime valley and shared a first kiss. All that effort that we put in our relationship to get through low points and stay together as a couple had been worth it.

Looking at my son, whose 25th birthday we just celebrated, I thought how objectively strange yet in my mind reasonable it is that this reunion even shaped his birthday. Back in 2001, I had yearned to attend my 15th reunion in early June. I had felt intensely pulled to return to this place not only to see my classmates, but also my siblings and parents who would be there. I had just turned 32, was nine months pregnant and ready to pop, and feeling anxious about the transition to parenting two kids and figuring out whether and how I’d restart a shelved career. My homing instinct went into overdrive. I needed the getaway to Ojai to feel grounded and supported—I needed to return to the nest.

So, figuring I could handle a road trip with a toddler and newborn if I had at least a week to recover, I had our son induced on May 31 (a day past his due date). Then our foursome drove from our Bay Area home back to Ojai so we could attend reunion that year. Instead of being exhausted by postpartum travel, I felt energized.

The weekend reminded me that relationships form the foundation of happiness, and our schools and communities shape our character. In my teens, I rebelled strongly against the school and yearned to escape the small town. I spread my wings, intentionally distanced myself from my parents, and became a runner in part to run from my past. Then I circled back and was welcomed back. I try to honor the teachers, horses, and friends who gave me so much by giving back to the school as a dedicated alumna. I’m so fortunate to have a place—this nest—to call home.

Adventure in midlife and beyond

On Saturday, I was asked to participate on an alumni speaker panel about “adventure in midlife and beyond,” to talk to peers and younger alumni about how to stay active in the outdoors. In addition to the horse program, the school prioritizes outdoor education and organizes camping trips for students and faculty a couple of times a year. They wanted us to share how our upbringing at the school contributed to being outdoorsy and adventurous later in life.

I’m sharing some excerpts, especially from my childhood playmate and lifelong friend Carolyn (pictured in the video on my left) who was on the panel. She and her husband (also one of our classmates) just finished bike-packing for weeks across Morocco, having also bike-packed across Canada. When we were asked what adventure means to us, she said, “For me, adventure is being on the steepest part of the learning curve, and that’s my favorite place to be, whether it’s learning about a new culture or a new way to interact.”

I shared my view that adventure involves seizing opportunities to do new things even though you can’t plan for everything and can’t be certain of the outcome. We all talked about the satisfaction of getting to remote places self-powered.

Asked how our generation and upbringing had shaped our sense of adventure, Carolyn and I reflected on our youth, when we ran wild and unsupervised on the campus. I don’t think we ever played inside with dolls, because we always were outside, either in her tree house reading or on a ropes course literally hanging out and daring ourselves. In addition to riding horses, we rode big-wheels without helmets down a perilous steep road. Unlike kids today, Carolyn said, “we were unsupervised and un-entertained. We had to entertain ourselves and figure out our own limits.”

I added, “We grew up so playful as faculty kids and then as students. We’d just play and explore. When I became a student, I became an ultra-wanderer and would wander at night, sometimes well beyond campus. That kind of adolescent rebelliousness and desire to explore feeds in to what I do now as an ultrarunner.”

When asked why we approach senior years as a time to be active and adventurous, I answered, “Well, it beats the alternative. As we age, we become creatures of habit and routine, so however you are becomes self-perpetuating. For me, I do it because it enriches our lives and keeps me feeling young, and also, I like being a mentor in my sport. I remember being in my thirties and forties and looking up to women in their fifties, and now I want to provide that role modeling for younger women who want to do mountain running.”

We were asked, what would you say to someone who feels like adventure is something they used to do rather than something they still do?

“I would say, start small,” I said. “Do anything that feels challenging, whether it’s going on a one-mile hike or starting a new project. Sometimes an adventure can be volunteering for something. Just put yourself out there.”

Carolyn added, “Start small but also be audacious. If there’s something you want to do, don’t sell yourself short. If you get something big in your head, think, ‘maybe I can do this.’”

I shared some photos from the long weekend on my Instagram, if you’d like to see. Also, if you get to visit and run around Ojai, I encourage you to read my piece in the new UltraRunning about Ojai trails, which is an homage to hometown trails as well as a guide on where to run there. Gift link here.

Congrats

I know of three subscribers who finished ultras this weekend. Bridget Wilson aka Blue finished her first-ever ultra, the Dam Yeti 55K in Virginia. Erica Moore finished the 50-mile division of that race and wrote an excellent race report about what makes the Yeti events special and truly inclusive. And Suzanna Bon nailed the Scout Mountain 100 (a Hardrock qualifier) in a strong time, placing 11th, and became the first over-60 woman ever to finish Scout Mountain 100.

Who am I missing? Share the news in the comments of a race you ran this past weekend! And I’d love to hear if this post triggered any thoughts on growing up and going back to reunions.