Adventures in Onionism

I had a great time watching the Western States 2025 this past weekend. I woke up at 3am to drive up to Olympic Village, where I got some free pre-race coffee before hiking up the escarpment with Nano. We saw a few acquaintances at the top and continued just over the bump to maybe be the furthest along spectators.  The runners came by, David Roche in the lead, and GOAT Kilian Jornet the only elite smiling. Then I recognized a few friends, and then somebody recognized *me*, which was crazy since I wasn't the one wearing a bib with my name on it. "Garret Christensen! I'm an [X] graduate, we went to undergrad together." "Uhh... Stalk me on Strava!" "I already tried that!" All as he was running by. I was able to figure out his name from his bib and the race roster, but it doesn't ring a bell and we haven't yet communicated to figure out what classes we had together. Nano and I ran a nice look with the Granite Chief Trail, and then drove over to ...

I'm sitting in a rocking chair next to the dogs on the front porch of a cabin in the Shenandoah Wilderness in Shenandoah National Park, enjoying the fireflies. I heard a whippoorwill a few minutes ago and realized I didn't bring earplugs, so we'll see if the night turns out magical or sleepless. After seemingly endless rain the past few weeks, the sun finally came out today. Juneteenth (Thursday) I road my bike out the W&OD to my hometown to go to the pool with a friend from junior high. I got a flat but still got 20 miles in. Today was hot but either it was less bad in the mountains or I'm getting used to it. I need mileage and more importantly massive vertical for Hardrock in 3 weeks, so I rented a car for the third straight weekend. It's stressful arranging the logistics with the dogs and work, but it feels good when I get good and tired. Did about 18 miles and 4,000 feet of vert today, hope for steeper tomorrow. The dogs and I had probably two dozen ticks on...

Lots of things have happened. Mostly bad, like family voting to traumatize federal employees (side note: It won't help balance the budget! ), my moving back to DC across the country away from Amy, and my colleagues that I worked hard to hire getting fired because consumer protection is bad now. But some good has happened. So here's the good running stuff. The first few months of the year have gone mostly according to plan.  February 8 I drove down to the Wild Oak Trail and started a midnight loop of TWOT. TWOT is a 29-mile loop that has turned into a twice-annual self-supported vaguely Barkley-esque run of one to eight loops. The  website makes it seem much more sadistic then it is (my friend tells me the RD mostly just doesn't know how to update the website to get rid of the "you don't deserve to be here" tone.) I planned to do two loops, including the first with a midnight start. The creek crossing was high, and the rain was cold, so I wimped out and just ...

 I really like PEBA foam. They don't seem to make the super-cheap Reebok (yes, Reebok) PEBA shoes that I like anymore. (I've put 600 miles on them which I think makes them some of the cheapest shoes per mile I've ever bought.) So I had my associate Claude make some charts for me.   Running Shoe Foam Technology Chart Running Shoe Foam Technology Chart A comprehensive mapping of proprietary foam names to underlying chemistry PEBAX/PEBA EVA/Supercritical EVA TPU TPEE Mixed/Blend Proprietary/Unknown ...

I tried to run five 100-milers in 2024. The last (UTMR) was cancelled due to landslides that even Swiss engineers couldn't fix quickly, so I ended up with four. February 23: Orcas Island 100 (29:53) June 7-8 Scout Mountain 100 (31:37) July 20: TRT 100 (31:45) August 30: UTMB Mont Blanc (39:26)   In addition, I ran Paiute Meadows 50K (May 11, 5:58) and did the 11-peak version of Desolate Peaks (August 17). I feel like the first half of the year was great--Orcas was early in the year to get me going, a nice social race, and a fun trip to the San Juan Islands and a visit to Seattle friends I hadn't seen in a while. The summer was good, with two hundreds and about two hundred miles in the Brooks Range in Alaska.    Then at UTMB, it was fun to experience the insane Tour de France-like fan crowds once, but I don't think I'll bother trying to get into it again. It was nice to hang out with Lucas' mom Jan in Chamonix, and travel around Switzerland by myself, but UTMR gettin...

Again, didn't sleep well, but had a great day. Maybe I'm inflating the Thermarest too much? It feels better slightly under inflated, but it's definitely not wide enough. We started the day with an out and back to Mott Lake. It was only a couple miles each way, and definitely worth it.  When we got back to camp it still wasn't very warm, so we packed up and headed out. We started ascending Mono Creek and finally hit running water in the sun around 11 so we stopped there and cooked hot food on a lovely beach by the creek.  Starbucks Via, and most other instant coffee tastes like metal and is awful--that was the only downside. Laird Hamilton has some coffee+coconut creamer+mushroom powder ("adaptogens" which are all the rage but quite obviously snake oil). I had one of those yesterday and that tasted halfway decent, but I only brought one because they're annoyingly expensive. I think the thing to do would be to grind my own beans at home, put a scoop in a pap...