Chicken Farm
When I was 6 years old we moved out to a 20 acre spread in Springbank, a rural area west of Calgary, Alberta, towards the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The nearest kid my age was Billy Young, who lived about a mile away by field, or 2 miles by road. Billy was a strange [...]
Eaton Canyon
Mt. Wilson was kind of a home-away-from-home this summer. The Mt. Wilson Observatory, parking lot, and cafe at the top of Mt. Wilson will be closing in a few weeks, and won’t open again until April. We took another run up the tollroad this Sunday, lunch at the Cosmic Cafe and then back down. Baby [...]
Zen vs. Oblivion
I recently read someone describe himself as “an Ultra runner trying for Zen oblivion.” There seems to be this common misconception about Buddhist meditation as escapism – that it will somehow carry you away as if you were on some sort of cosmic high – completely apart from and oblivious to the world around you. [...]
Sierra Nevada Endurance Run
6:30 am, sunrise over the American River, a big, wide, and real river, unlike, say, the San Gabriel River down here in Angeles Forrest, which as much as I like soaking my feet in it during a good hot run would barely qualify as a mountain stream anywhere else. This is the river of Sutter’s [...]
Black and White
A year ago I was still running roads. An acquaintance of mine ran ultras. We became friends who became good friends who became even better friends, and, after a long time basically fighting it, we ended up lovers. She’s been at the center of my ultra running experience, brief as it thus far is. This [...]
Bob Holtel
Maggie and I took a run from Inspiration Point to to top of Mt. Baden Powell and back, part of the AC100 course, a little altitude and hill training for me, taking the opportunity to run and familiarize myself with the entire AC100 course, just in case…’Cause I intend to run this thing next year [...]
Idyllwild
I live in hills. These hills are pretty close to the center of LA, near Dodger Stadium, but they are hills. When I moved in here my only complaint (and it was a small one) was that my view, somewhat spectacular through the trees, (but there are enough trees around me to obscure it except [...]
Mount Disappointment 50K
Sat. August 13. This is said to be the toughest 50K in So. Cali. We started at the top of Mt. Wilson, headed down, up down, up, down, up… 7,403 feet of climbing says my Garmin. Probably a dozen stream crossings. Long exposed climbs. Because AC100 had traditionally been held in September, and because the [...]
Mt. Disappointment Test Runs #2 & #3
I’d run the Mt. Disappointment training run a few weeks back, crashed at about the 3 mile mark, and did the rest in pain. I decided to have another go at it. Not knowing what she was getting into, Kista joined me. The climb up back up Mt. Wilson on Kenyon Devore trail was more [...]
AC100
Angeles Crest 100. 100 miles through Angeles Forest and the San Gabriel Mountains, starting at Wrightwood and finishing in town in Alta Dena, almost all trail, often technical, 23,000 feet of up and 26,000 feet of down, lots of the run at not insignificant altitude…and in heat… I was crewing friend and running partner Maggie [...]
Western States 100
Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run. Perspective makes a difference. Some people never recovered from the snow and ice. Others, like Maggie, cite it as a favorite part of the race, although it seems Maggie fell as often as anyone, and came away from some nasty ice bruises. She found a comedy in the spills, [...]
Mt. Disappointment Training Run
Mt. Disappointment Training Run. Down Mt. WIlson road, a turn onto some singletrack, down to Redbox Rincon Road to Westfork and then up Kenyon Devore to Mt. Wilson. 15.5 miles, 3,800′ of climbing. And pretty much a disaster…or at least that was my perception at the moment. At about 3.5 miles in I did a [...]
Kista and the Twins, Mt. Wilson Twice
Angeles Forest. The idea was to head down a singletrack that I’ll be following during Mt. D. but Kista & I could’t find access to the trail (and anyhow, it’s all overgrown with poodle dog bush) and took the fireroad down instead. Hot, no shade, amazing smells, 3,000 feet down, and then we reached the [...]
Mt. Wilson
I have two friends running Western States this weekend: Maggie Beach & Sheri Okamamoto. Kista & I will be driving up to Auburn early Sat am to cheer them as they finish. This year there’ve been record snows up in Squaw Valley. Folks on the Ultralist report that locals cannot remember there having ever been [...]
Nanny Goat 2011
Nanny Goat 12hr: 60 miles 7th place overall. Nanny Goat 12/24/100 is run on a 1 mile loop run around a ranch in Riverside It’s a timed race: 12 hours, 24 hours, and, this year, an official 100 miler. I ran the 12 hour race. This would be my second post-50 miler, the first (and [...]
Leona Divide 50 miler – 2011
Kista and I headed out to Leona Divide to cheer on our friends who were running. Chris Quesada, who is one of my running partners, had finished his 30K and twisted his ankle, which is a bummer. He still managed to finish 11th. Drew had pulled out of the 30K with a hamstring injury. Maggie [...]
Henninger Flats & Mount Luken
Sun, fog, hot, cold, inquisitive deer, snarling bobcats, 2 mountains, 7,300′ of climbing. Saturday I decided to try a heat & sun training run, 3,700 feet up Mt. Lukens at high noon on a hot, sunny day. The two other times I’ve run this, it was in the morning, in fog, and cold. Those runs [...]
Wild Wild West Marathon & 50K – 2011
Don’t follow me, I’m lost too. It’s never a good sign when the runner you are following ends up on the edge of a cliff, calling out “Hello? Hello? Is anybody out there?” Traversing the Eastern Sierras, running along the base of Mount Whitney and not that far from the edge of Death Valley, Wild [...]
Confronting Fear
There is a guy amongst my acquaintances whose stated ambition as a runner (and perhaps as a man) is “To crush fear in all its forms”. While it might work for him, it seems to me to be the wrong approach to take when confronting fear. I’m not interested in crushing or otherwise defeating fear. [...]
Ragnar Relay
Ragnar Relay, Socal. 12 runners, 2 vans, 229 miles, Huntington Beach to San Diego. We assembled Friday morning at 6:30 am and drove down to Huntington Beach to check in and start painting our vans. On the way we discovered things like our #12 slot runner who had the longest run at 26 miles had [...]
52 Mile Birthday Run
My birthday was April 21st. The idea was to run my age, which was 51. I had some doubts, but if worst came to worst I could always go metric and make it a 51K. After all, I’m half French. I scheduled it for Saturday the 23rd, so that my friends who actually have jobs [...]
Chasing Fog: Mount Lukens & Topanga
Some days a run is something I need to do to keep sane. Saturday was one of those days. I was pissed off at other people and at my inability to respond without frustration when I let them annoy me just a bit too much. I needed to run off steam. I got to Topanga [...]
The Old Man & the Wedding
My stepfather and I had not talked in 14 years. Our relationship had never been that terribly close because we’re both suspicious, distrustful characters, and we’d both given up on each other by the time I got to be about 10 years old. My little sister got married last month and the old man and [...]
Cheseboro Canyon, 21 Miles
Cheeseboro Canyon is located in the northernmost section of the Santa Monica Mountains Nation Recreational Area. Before the ranchers moved in, the Chumash Indians lived in the canyons. The canyons are said to be full of deer, bobcats, coyotes, and rabbits, (and I saw a lot of the latter two). Cheeseboro Canyon also has the [...]
