Adventures in Onionism

It's Tuesday, I'm back in Berkeley, and I just ran my first Hardrock last Friday/Saturday in 34:42. I wanted to record thoughts immediately after the experience, because it was hard , and now that it's been a few days, I'm already forgetting the pain. [I don't want kids, so you'll have to insert your own reference to childbearing here if you so desire.] Start The race started at 6AM. I slept reasonably well the night before in my truck just behind the school gym where the race starts--Silverton is very low key, so it's easy to dirtbag inside the city limits. I did, however, have a bit of GI non-normality, but it didn't seem like a big deal. I started in shorts, T-shirt, and a windshirt. As expected, the windshirt soon became too warm, likely because of the clouds that were obviously going to bring rain sooner rather than later. First Climb I started maybe 30-40 deep in the field, going faster than I'd ever climbed in training, but not feel...

I'm just a few days out from my first Hardrock. It's probably the hardest non-Barkley 100-miler, with 33,000 feet of climbing. Wasatch used to have 26 or 27,000, I think, before a private property issue forced them to get rid of a climb towards the end. Most other hard 100's I've done have from 18-21,000. They also aren't at 11,000 feet elevation. Tahoe 200 only had 34,000 over 200 miles, so Hardrock is definitely hard. The Lottery It's also very difficult to get into because 70% of the fewer than 150 spots are reserved for people who have already run it. (Lottery system described here --basically, there's a never bucket, a 5-time veteran bucket, and everyone else.) I'm biased since I haven't run it before, but I think this system is absurd. Obviously the race directors can do whatever they want, as evidenced by the fact that they are , but the more important question is whether they should . Should a race on public land be largely limited to the...

I left Berkeley Sunday June 19 after putting about half my stuff in storage as a hedge against a possible July 1 eviction. (The owner wants to move in, but doesn't want to pay the $20,000 relocation assistance. The place isn't rent controlled, so he just raised the rent. Seems like the relocation assistance initiative Berkeley passed in November is pretty toothless given this easy out.) Anyway, my stuff didn't get tossed onto the street, so we're fine for now. I woke up Monday with a tickle in the throat that later became the cold I'm still not 100% over. Colds are annoying. How do I get fewer of them? Sleeping for only four hours in an I-80 rest stop probably doesn't help. There's probably something to be said for not picking your nose on long drives, too. I stopped in Salt Lake and climbed the West Slabs route with a few long distance hiker friends. I made it to A&B's house in Lafayette, CO where I spent the next week with gf, who was in Boul...