An Anniversary and a Cause
Thank you for being here
Hi there,
I wrote this post last Friday and scheduled it to publish today (Wednesday, September 25). When it comes out, I should be offline at this camp in southern Utah, having just finished the long stage of the Grand to Grand Ultra.
This post isn’t focused on the Grand to Grand, however (my last two posts covered why this event means so much to me, the logistics of it, and how to follow it).
Instead, I want to mark the third anniversary of this newsletter and thank you, the subscribers, so much for your support. You help me write every week.
In late September of 2021, I launched this Substack for a fresh start to blogging and with a desire to write more about life at midlife in the mountains, not just about mountain/ultra/trail running. I had been blogging on WordPress since 2008. I was neglecting my old blog, in part because it became buggy and difficult to fix. Substack promised a fresh reader- and writer-friendly platform with more growth through its network.
I wrote this first post on “Why Racing Matters,” excerpted here:
… this anticipation, and plan-making, for racing in 2022 is the manifestation of optimism, and I savor it as an antidote to pessimism about the future. For a quarter-century, I’ve structured my life around an annual pattern of building up to, then recovering from, long-distance races. It started out with road marathons, then became ultra-distance odysseys on trail. … By racing, I give aging the middle finger. I prove that my body can still run the distance, slower than in years past, but still strong.
I have published every Wednesday since then, plus occasional bonus posts to paid subscribers, for a total of 217 posts. I’m proud of this consistency, because my kaleidoscopic professional career has been marked by relatively short jobs, half-finished projects, and shelved hobbies (e.g. piano and Spanish study). Challenging myself to develop something worth sharing each Wednesday has made me more engaged and productive, and also connected me with readers in a meaningful way. I’ve gotten to know a lot of you through this newsletter (especially those of you at the supporter level who join the monthly online meetup), and I’m so grateful for these relationships and your feedback.
I have almost reached my somewhat random but feels-right goal of growing by 1000 subscribers annually. Here are this newsletter’s subscriber numbers today:
I’d like to think that if I only had three instead of nearly 3000 readers, I’d still write a weekly story, because I love finding and crafting the story. I also love doing it on my terms, rather than trying to please an editor. I can write whatever I want! I can share my opinions and most vulnerable feelings. Or I can spotlight someone who deserves attention.
This process of thinking and writing is its own reward insofar as it makes me observe, examine, and make sense of inner dialogue, emotions, and the world around me. It makes me consider and grapple with questions such as, what am I doing? What do I want to be doing? Who do I admire and why? Why does so-and-so bug the shit out of me? How should I change? Why is change so hard? What am I teaching and leaving my kids and their generation? How am I still married to my high school best friend? And why does the repetitive practice of running continue to anchor my daily life?
For those of you relatively new to this newsletter, I’ll share here a couple of posts from the past year that let you into my background and personal life, and some that are examples of mini-profiles of others:
When I’m not writing this newsletter, I’m developing a memoir. I opened up about my plan and goal for it in this new year’s post, and then described the writing process in this post. I am not on track for reaching the goal of ending the year with a fully developed outline, sample chapters, and a proposal. But I have written over 50,000 words that I feel good about, and I’m determined to finish.
With that in mind, I may waver from my weekly commitment to this newsletter in the coming months and switch to every other week. This newsletter monopolizes my writing energy on Mondays and Tuesdays, so to prioritize the book development, I may cut back on this Substack. But for now, I’ll stick to every Wednesday.
I would sincerely appreciate your feedback on this newsletter—which types of posts you tend to click through to read and why; which you skip and why; and any suggestions for making it more worthwhile. If you get this newsletter via email, you can reply to the email. Or, you can leave a public comment below. In any case, I am not fishing for compliments; I sincerely appreciate candid and constructive criticism!
One last word about my public lands campaign
September 28 is the day I finish the Grand to Grand Ultra. (See what I did there, declaring that I will finish it?) It’s also, coincidentally, National Public Lands Day, a day to appreciate and give back to national public lands through stewardship and service. So, you might do trail work, beach cleanup, or just get out and hike to enhance appreciation for land meant to be kept open and undeveloped, and managed by federal, state, or local governments instead of privately held, for the sake of wilderness, healthy ecosystems, and recreation.
You can also make an impact by donating to my fundraiser for Conservation Lands Foundation. Please click through to this page to learn more about this nonprofit and why I support it. I would love to get back online September 29 and see that I’ve raised at least $5000 for CLF!
A snapshot of the Grand to Grand Ultra
If you want an idea of what it’s like to run (and crawl) this stage race, here is an excerpt from my 2019 race report, when I finished first woman and tenth overall. It describes the nighttime miles during the 53-mile long stage on Day 3, starting with these sand dunes at the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park outside of Kanab.
The first one we could hike, but then we had to plunge our hands into the second one, which sloped like a ladder and rose at least two stories high. I punched my fists into the sand and started to bear crawl. Up up up we crawled on this wall of sand, briefly slipping backwards before regaining forward momentum, gasping for breath, finally reaching the top and pausing on hands and knees.
“That’s two!” I said. “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!”
We slid down the backside of the dunes, strained our eyes to spot course markers in the distance, and progressively scrambled up each one. At one point, while bear-crawling, I placed my fist next to a tarantula as big as my hand. The creature seemed cool, and nothing could scare me.
The Milky Way on a moonless night illuminated a swath of the star-filled galaxy and made me feel supernatural. We counted 32 dunes. Eventually the dunes transitioned to a deep-sand track with mild hills. Then I followed the course markers to make a right turn off the track into the snarl of Hell’s Garden.
I don’t know the proper names of these desert plants, but imagine being surrounded at night by small trees and bushes with spike-covered branches. Mounds of dead wood and other rotten foliage mix with rocks and low-lying cacti to create an uneven, sharp footing. There is no such thing as a trail to follow. Occasionally, the ground gives way and drops 8 feet down a sandy bank into a gully wash, making for a scramble up the other side. At one point I tripped and almost face-planted into the carcass of a decaying sheep.
My dimming headlamp could barely catch the reflective glow of the pink course ribbons in the distance. Each ribbon is a lifeline; if you can’t spot the next marker, you’ll be entangled and disoriented until daybreak.
Suddenly, a shiny obstacle came into view: a tall barbed-wire fence that looked fairly new. All day we had passed through fences managed by ranchers and the BLM; when no gate presented itself, a helpful sign instructed us to climb over the fence, and a stump or some other obstacle aided the climb. But this fence had no gate, no sign, no stepladder—just razor-sharp wire about 5 feet high, attached to metal stakes that did not provide any footholds. The course markers clearly advanced on the other side of the barbed fence.
I looked around, disbelieving. Is this a joke, a trick? Finally I concluded we had to get through it, so I could choose to go over or under.
Not trusting my coordination to climb, and not wanting to shred my legs, I chose to go under. I took off my pack, threw it on the other side, and got flat on my belly to squeeze through the 18-inch-high gap between the ground and the first row of barbed wire. I found myself eye-to-eye with ants and beetles, and I felt sand on my cheek. I pondered internally, Who does this kind of shit at 1:30 in the morning? Then I roared out loud, “I DO!”
Thank you for being here!
- Sarah
50k wds is a good start
Congrats on 3 years and publishing every week! You're inspiring me both as a writer and a runner 🙌