Adventures in Onionism

...and I forgot to train. Euchre Bar Massacre happened again. After heading out to California for Castle Peak in August, and doing reasonably well, my training dropped off in September. I did have two 60+ mile weeks, but mostly was down around 40 per week. I rode the 60-mile WABA 50-States Ride (where you ride a bit of every state-named avenue in the District). That was an interesting way to see the city, and I had fun doing it with the group, but as far as the biking itself goes, it's mostly terrible. I did some pretty lame scouting of the Tuscarora trail, as I was sort of thinking about setting an unsupported FKT on it in the future, but I didn't really enjoy this section all that much.  I also went out to West Virginia and did a 40-mile loop in Dolly Sods Wilderness for my birthday. I'll never get around to blogging about it, but I highly recommend the Sods if you're in the DC area--the northern section is a high plateau  with scrubby windblown trees that brought b...

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...

I spent a day on Mt. Tam climbing up the mountain in creek beds and "running" down it on abandoned firebreaks and overgrown trails. It's not a race so much as friends organizing a group run. I didn't do as well as I'd hoped, missing the very first checkpoint and having to backtrack. It was a hard but fun day. Here's the route. Look at the vert. Here's a photo sphere of the view of the North Bay from near the West Peak summit.

Last year I met a friend of a friend who does what he calls foot things . Basically, Barkley-like races--lots of off-trail travel, following written directions from checkpoint to checkpoint, collecting pages torn from books or other hidden doo-dads to prove you'd been there, usually as steeply as possible. Except this friend lives in Portland, not Tennessee, so some of the races aren't absurdly far away, and also, the races are just getting started, so if you know the right people, you can actually get in. I've mentioned them on the blog before, but I first ran Euchre Bar Massacre on the American River last October, and it was incredible, especially after the mid-race cancellation of the more official race I ran the previous month. In May I did the MeOw Marathons in Whiskeytown, and this weekend I did the inaugural Bone Tempest on Mt. Tamalpais. I sort of won, but there were only seven of us, so it's no big deal. It's not officially a race, either. No money change...

Jiminy Christmas the trails in Ventana Wilderness are in bad shape. Just got back from a two-night trip to Ventana Wilderness. I hate planning group camping trips, because everyone bails. Indeed, pretty much everyone couldn't, bailed, or flaked, but a few people made it, and roasting bananas in rum and sugar over a campfire tastes like heaven, so as long as we all come out without poison oak (a big if), it will all be worth it. We hiked from Los Padres dam on the east side of Ventana Wilderness (that's "Big Sur" for all intents and purposes) up the Carmel River. The trail was in OK shape most of the way (6.5 miles), but deteriorated a bit in the last mile or so up to Hiding Camp, where we spent Saturday night. I explored the Puerto Suello trail from there up to Ventana Double Cone, but it a miserable impassable mess, far worse than the Enchanted Gorge, or my previous trip to Ventana. The trail from Hiding Camp to China Camp seemed like it might be in passable cond...