Adventures in Onionism

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...

Not the best night sleep last night, NeoAir XLite just isn't wide enough for this tossing and turning side sleeper. However, had a nice morning. Got up and walked without breakfast until the sun was actually shining on us and we were near water. That happened to be in a gorgeous basin, so it worked out. One of the peaks looking over us looked like a wave in a rip curl, and Margo behaved herself while I cooked food, so worked out well.  We went over McGee Pass, and when we were out of the wind, I counted up the mileage and looked for another way over the Silver Divide so that I wouldn't have to use the JMT for so long, but all the passes (Shout of Relief, Bighorn, Warrior Ridge) mention talus, which I'm not sure Margo could handle. So the PCT it is. Also decided against a few extra miles of a simple loo down Cascade Valley on Fish Creek Trail and Minnow Creek Trail. Actual fatigue wasn't setting in yet, but decision fatigue was. Took the PCT/JMT south over Silver Pass, a...

Normally about now I'd be pulling up at the Tahoe National Forest campground and falling asleep in the back of my car before Euchre Bar Massacre, but I just wasn't ready for it. Since UTMB and non-UTMR I've had too little  motivation, and too many work trips and house projects. Once I got back to Reno from DC, I was too tired to go to SoCal with Amy and George last weekend, so I waited a week and planned a backpacking trip with Margo. I didn't leave Reno until noon and still tried to pick up a few things on my way south, and traffic was bad, so I didn't start until around 6pm.  It's 8pm now, completely dark, and I have no intention of cooking tonight. My gear isn't dialed and that bothers me--pack seems too small, sleeping quilt too big, bummed a lighter off someone at the trailhead, I don't really like the tarp I brought, Margo won't stop licking my face, and her new dog bivy arrived literally minutes before I left this morning but she's being w...