Adventures in Onionism

It's not that gross, but heads up: blister pic. I generally think that you should mix up shoe brands and styles to keep your muscles guessing and avoid injury. For the past few years I've typically used maximal shoes for longer races: Hoka Challenger ATR for mellower trails, Hoka Stinson ATR for steep or rocky stuff and the La Sportiva Akasha recently. I felt like I wanted these more maximal shoes for the sake of my feet not feeling like hamburger at the end of a long race, but lately both the Stinsons and the Akashas are giving me a weird side-heel blister (as shown). It starts as a deep tic-tac sized blister at the edge of  the thick pad (the white part), and it spreads up the side as a regular thin watery blister you're used to. Most maximal cushion shoes do this now So what's up with the heel cups in maximally cushioned shoes? Is the foam compressing and pinching/rubbing? This doesn't happen in more moderately cushioned shoes. I assume this post is tot

My third straight 34+ hour 100, and it hurt. Actually my fourth, if you count Hardrock 2017, but that wasn't nearly as big a disappointment, since Hardrock is supposed to take me that long--I finished right on my average Ultrasignup score of 70% (winner's time/my time) and a solid 36 place/126 finishers. In the last three races (Grindstone, Massanutten, High Lonesome) I finished 59%, 62%, 64% (Ultrasignup) and place 145/207 (70%), 79/96 (82%), 68/86 (79%). Anyway, cart before horse. What about the race itself? I flew to Denver Wednesday, and drove to Salida Thursday. I showed up at the high school for race check-in and was disappointed to learn that everyone had checked in, meaning I wouldn't be getting in off the waitlist. I spent the next several hours buying and downloading maps and making alternate plans with my would-be pacers. After settling on a plan (the three southernmost 14ers of Nolans Friday and 30 miles of the crest of another range Saturday), getting my da