Adventures in Onionism

Oh boy. I finally ran my first attempt at the  Barkley Marathons  this past weekend. (Watch  the movie  first if you don't know what I'm talking about.) It lived up to the hype. The weather was gnarly, the course was awesome, and I had the time of my life (on loop one). I've dreamt about the race for years, and I have been applying since the 2013 race, maybe missing one year. I got on the waitlist for 2016, and as is the practice, moved my way up over the last couple years. I started in spot seven this year, and was accepted into the race mid-February. Unfortunately, I was unable to train much, because I was on the economics PhD job market. I wrapped up a long 2017 running season in the fall, and essentially took November, December, and January off, running only ~100 miles per month. Instead I finished up drafts of two papers, submitted one to a journal, sent the other to 130 employers, interviewed with a dozen, and flew to visit four. Finally, after the second-r...

After missing it last year with a cold, I was able to run my favorite race again this October: the Euchre Bar Massacre. I love it. I'm not supposed to share the exact route with you, but it's up and down the steep and deep canyon of the North Fork of the American River eight times, following written directions to a series of books hidden in the woods to act as checkpoints. Most of the downs are on trail, most of the ups are off trail. I love it. Even if it's 40-45 degrees and raining the entire day. I missed the cutoff at 1AM so I did not finish. I love it.  Photo by Sean Ranney

I ran the MeOw Marathons this weekend. Styled loosely after Barkley, and similar to Euchre Bar Massacre that I did last October, this is a race where you follow an unmarked course using written directions and gathering pages from books hidden in designated locations to prove that you went where you were supposed to. I was signed up for the Quads (there were 1x, 2x, and 4x options available, of approximately 35, 61, and 105 miles) but since my knee has not fully recovered from Zion three weeks ago, I thought going in it was very unlikely I'd finish all 100+ miles. My knee balked a bit when I ran, so I hiked the vast majority of the time. I finished the first 61 mile loop in just under 24 hours, and that was it for me. (I missed a cut off by a couple hours, and I was fine with that.) So that's an abysmally slow 100K, right? When you factor in that it was off trail, following powerline cuts or abandoned and overgrown trails through poison oak, with 22,000 feet of vertical gain,...