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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Desert Dash Malibu Double Half Marathon
Two half marathons on one day, on a single track section of the Backbone Trail, up in Malibu. Technical single-track, with 2500′ of climbing for each run. The first race began at 10 am. The second began at 6pm and was run in the dark. We parked down near PCH and Malibu Canyon Road and [...]
Feb 13- Backbone Trail
Feb 13, 2011. 10 miles. The Backbone Trail is a 68 mile long trail that runs through the Santa Monica Mountains from Point Mugu to Will Rogers St. Park in the Palisades. It crosses the Temescal Canyon Fireroad that’s one of my standard Topanga runs. Parts of it are technical single track trail, open only [...]
Calico 50K
2 weeks before the race, my friend Kista suggested I run Calico with her. I said yes. It would be my first 50K, just as it was her first 5 years ago. I loved it. It was, for me, the best 50K I could’ve picked for my first. Yes, the trail was brutal and gave [...]
Topanga #3
Nov. 27. A few days after bloodying my knees, and a week after the rains, I headed back out to Topanga for one of my make-it-up-as-I-go-along runs. This time I took off along a single-track about 2.5 miles in. A scramble uphill, a steep and very rocky scramble downhill, a bit of open trail, a [...]
Kista
I took a run through Arroyo Seco with a friend, and shot a roll while we ran. Kista showed me a long single track that winds up into the hills. Sometimes I led, but mostly I followed, and snapped a bunch of random shots as we ran.
Topanga Mud
It was windy and wet and the wildlife was being particularly loud, especially the birds, who were making sounds I don’t recall having ever heard. The mud was really thick and slippery in spots; at one point my shoes weighed about 7lbs each. I’d never run Topanga during a (lull in a) storm. The run [...]
Topanga
Three times the size of Griffith Park, Topanga State Park is the largest State park in America that is entirely within city limits. It’s a rugged chunk of park. Mother Nature’s mellow, nurturing side is not so much on display in Topanga. It’s not bucolic Wind in the Willows territory. It’s hard land. I always [...]
Ultra
It’s not quite been a year since my friend Buck dared me to run the LA Marathon with her. It had been almost 30 years since I last ran in earnest. For 20 of those 30 years I’d lived a life someone else described as a “bad Larry Clark photograph”. I emerged from it all [...]
Run to the Hollywood Sign
Sunday morning, 6:30 am, a small bunch of us gathered at A Runner’s Circle for the monthly run to the Hollywood Sign. I was running on tired legs – this was my third hill run in as many days – so I happily volunteered to sweep. A few of our small crew are great road [...]
Elysian Park
A favorite run of mine is the three and a half mile loop through Elysian Park along the wide trail off Morton, mostly used by local hip-but-not-hipster area residents as a dog walking path. It’s a wide clay path, shaded from the sun, and the direction I run it starts out with almost a mile [...]
Griffith Park East Trail, 10 Miles
10 miles in Griffith Park, up Mineral Wells Trail to East Trail, and then just following the path, veering right at forks, running above various fire roads until I felt a little soreness in the foot and stopped climbing and headed back down on the trails alongside Mineral Wells drive, the last 4 miles flat. [...]
Your X-Ray is Fine
The nurse left a voicemail: “Your foot x-ray is fine.” I’m not sure what that means. Does it mean that it’s framed correctly and in focus, or are they trying to tell me there is nothing wrong with my foot and that the swelling is imaginary? Yesterday, when I went in, the Dr. was satisfied [...]
Coyote
I often pass coyotes up on the fireroads climbing the hills through Griffith Park. I see them most early in the mornings, when there aren’t other people around and the senses of peace and freedom are greatest. I’ve come to judge how good a ride or run is by the number of coyotes I pass. [...]
Brooks Cascadia
Every Tuesday my local running store A Runner’s Circle hosts a run at the Silverlake Reservoir. Every Thursday, they host a larger run that begins at the shop and heads into Griffith Park. It’s a great thing – a good running community has taken shape around these runs, and for a lot of new folks [...]
Valley Crest Half Marathon
Valley Crest Half Marathon June 13. Somewhere on the first long climb back up, at about the 4 1/2 mile mark, I tripped over something and did a face plant. This resulted in a decent amount of blood and a bit of hurt. There was a moment while running – I was covered in dirt [...]
Valley Crest Half Marathon, training run
A friend is running the Valley Crest Half Marathon on June 13. This will be her first half marathon, so we decided to do a training run on the race course today, up in the Topanga Hills. It’s not a mountain ultra, but it’s a helluva lot hillier and rougher than any of my normal [...]
Ultra
I’ve decided I’m gonna run an ultra. Well, probably not an ultra, as in just one, but in general. There are these moments, regular moments, out there on the trails, that I don’t experience quite so much on the pavement. I’m never gonna be a Kenyan. The challenge is not to win a race against [...]
