Adventures in Onionism

This year isn't starting off very well, neither for me as an Elizabeth Warren fan, nor for me as a runner. I strained my hamstring in the very race I wrote about in my last post where I laid out this year's plans. I rode my bike to and from the Al Lewis 10-miler, and felt fine, but then later that day when I was sitting on the couch, I felt much sorer than usual, and it hasn't gone away. I managed to do two big runs the following weekend: Saturday I ran the JFK 20K and then ran 13.5 miles home afterward. Sunday I ran the Waterfall 50K out on Massanutten with a two-mile shortcut in the middle of the race. I nearly shat myself and had to divert into the woods on the 20K, so my time wasn't going to be great regardless of injury, but I was only running 8:10-8:20 miles, and definitely still felt the muscle strain. Out on Massanutten I was OK jogging downhills and road sections, but flat sections were tough because Massanutten is so rocky that you have to lift your leg higher...

365 consecutive days of running at least two miles done, and 2,601 miles of running for the year. I set a goal to run every day this year. I just ran six more miles, putting me at 2,601 miles for the year, and 365 consecutive days or running at least two miles every day. I'm glad I completed the streak, but I will not be continuing. I used streak running as a means to increase my total mileage, which has long been a goal. I was successful in that goal, as I surpassed my previous highest mileage from 2015 of 2,485 running miles. The obvious caveat is that this is running miles, as I doubt I will ever cover more miles on foot that in I did hiking ~6,000 miles round trip hike on the CDT in 2007. It's less than half the yearly mileage, but in 2007 I walked from sun up to sun down for 178.5 days, while in 2019 I had a mortgage, held down a full-time job, and published a book and a couple papers, so I feel like I'm doing a decent job of getting after it given the constraints. ...

I've run my last race of the year: a 5-mile turkey trot in Alexandria, VA. I did as much speed work as I could in the twelve days between Richmond Marathon and the turkey trot (which is not much), but I finished in 32:16. I'm happy I went under 6:30 pace, but more importantly, MRB beat me. He warned me not to start too fast, and then I immediately went and started too fast! I just don't feel like waiting for the people who clearly shouldn't be near the start to slowly filter out--I'll go around the now, please and thank you. So he passed me after about 3/4 miles, but then I kept him in sight the whole way. I felt like maybe I was gaining on him in the last mile straightaway, and then I definitely was gaining on him with about a quarter mile to go when our fellow high school friend was loudly cheering us on and enjoying the intense chase. But I was gassed, and there were too many turns around the school to really know where the finish line was, so he beat me by 10 ...

Just got home back to Williamsburg after setting a PR and breaking 3 hours in the Virginia Beach Shamrock Marathon. I told people when I got a job in DC that though I'd miss the Berkeley trails, I'd be fine, because I'd just get fast again instead. I'm happy to say that appears to be what I did. Drove to Williamsburg Friday and got a wonderful 11 hours of sleep. Saturday I tried out my absurdly expensive Nike Vaporfly shoes for a quick two miles with George, then gf and I drove to Virginia Beach to pick up our packets (she ran the half) and meet my cousin and her husband for dinner. George came along and goofed around on the beach a bit--dogs are allowed all day during the off-season. Despite this being at least my 85th marathon-or-longer, I was nervous for this, since (A) it was the first race in a while I had put real pressure on myself to perform, and (B) relative to my normal 50's and 100's, there's no time to make up time in a three-hour race. One ...

Remember how I hiked in Montana, the Canadian Rockies, and Alaska last summer? I micro-blogged with my phone during much of it, and posted photos on Instagram when I had reception, but life happened (I bought a house) and I never really got around to writing much or organizing photos.  Until now! Here are my favorite photos from Montana and the GDT , and from Alaska . In Montana and Canada I had a separate camera in addition to my phone, so maybe in six months I'll also organize those; right now you just get phone shots. That camera drowned in the Muddywater River on the last day of the GDT, so I only had my phone for Alaska. (Never mind that my phone also broke two days later, it got replaced.) Anyway, John Z is working on a series of videos of our time in Alaska, I'll let you know when that comes out; it will put my stuff to shame. Check out his YouTube channel --he's quite talented. I made a resolution to run every day this year. I made it through January. It is sup...

I went to UCLA to present my research. I went to London to help run a research transparency and reproducibility workshop. GF and I went from there to Scotland after and the rental car was a lemon, it overheated, I blew the head gasket, and per Enterprise's instructions we left it by the side of the road in order to catch our train. It's as pretty as you've heard Summit of Ben Nevis Then back home I got hit by a car on my bike (an Uber with passengers, who fled the scene when I pulled out my phone to document and call the police!) I was not hurt but fuck Uber for not caring. This is a felony. This is a felony. This is a felony. Murder someone, don't pay tolls, whatever. I've got dealer tags!  Thankfully a change to the dealer tag law has already been passed and will kick in after just one more year, only 3,000 California traffic fatalities from now. This is the turd who could've killed me In October I ran the Eu...

I've been on the road for the last few weeks. In telling you about it, I think the most important thing is that I deactivated my Facebook account and deleted Twitter, Slack, and Instagram from my phone. As a result, I read a book. ( Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver.) I'd tell you how long it's been since I read a book, but that would require that I log in to Facebook since my Goodreads account is linked to Fb. So let's just say it's been a while, and that  I hate the Internet and want my old brain back. I visited six places on my trip: Nevada, Southwest Oregon, Portland, Chicago, Ann Arbor, and the Oregon Coast. First, I drove to Nevada (with a brief detour to Royal Gorge on the American River in the Sierras) and ran the very nice Ruby Crest trail with Brian. We also tried to do the East Humboldt range the next day, but it didn't work out because the trail doesn't exist anymore. Second, I drove to remote Powers, OR, where I locked myself in a ...

I'm signed up for Plain 100 in Washington one weekend in September, and IMTUF in Idaho the weekend after. There's a very small but non-zero probability that I'll want to do Mogollon Monster outside Phoenix the following weekend. What's the most fun way to do this? I could take the time off work, or even do a little work remotely, so how should I do this? Thinking of just the first two races, driving would be about 2,000 miles, or about 32 hours. Given my gas-hog truck that's about $450 (16 mpg, gas $3.50/gallon). Or I could fly OAK->SEA, run a race, fly SEA->BOI, run a race, and fly BOI->OAK. Three one-ways on Southwest, Alaska, and Southwest would be $360, total.  With two rental cars, and gas for them, the total would be around $725. I suppose I could also just fly to Seattle and drive the 666 miles to both races and fly home from Boise, but that's over $1,000 just for the one-way car rental. Or I could fly to Seattle and drive to Idaho and back. Or...

My knee may prevent any serious racing for a while due to ITBS (including the 100-miler I'm signed up for this weekend) but I got my grant application in on time, and my dog is better looking than yours. So I've still got that. The perfect hour Pounce Mellow Chew Vertical Chew Fierce Chew Fangs

Some people may misuse Strava and end up getting people killed, but when used appropriately, it makes for some cool maps . How many people know about my "super secret single track"? Not many. I like to think some of that is me.

Delivered today, just in time for JFK 50 on Saturday. Running 50 miles with no training in brand new crazy shoes. What could go wrong? 152 job apps in.

That was kind of fun. Not too bad for having run further than five miles only twice in the last 2.5 months, and only 100 miles of "training." Hope I recover for JFK 50 in six days.

Sure, I can go wander around some slot canyons with gf after a decent 100-miler, but I couldn't do this:

46 total, 39 running. I took Monday and Tuesday off with traveling and resting after Bryce, but then got going again. I found my "long" run on Saturday pretty worrying--I basically felt like garbage and walked a bunch of it, and thought that maybe Bryce recovery was going to take me a lot longer than I expected. However, my run on Sunday was much better: a standard loop in the Wissahickon with a few more miles around Swat in the evening. So I think things are OK. Hopefully this week and next will be 50+, and then I can calm down the week before States.   

Ran 52 or so this week. Didn't get in anything super long on the weekend because I volunteered at the C&O Canal 100 Saturday and Sunday. The course was basically 25 miles of the canal out and back twice. I manned an aid station that got hit four times with one other person. It was all pretty low key, so I had time to go running on the canal, but I only did 8 because it was supremely flat and boring. I did a nice 8 at 6:50 pace on Thursday with the young rabbit guys from BMRC. Remember when I could run 26 miles at that pace? It's really nice to occasionally be able to gut out that type of speed. Then again, I basically hate running on suburban pavement, so I can only do it because of the group. Up next weekend--Bear Mountain 50 Miler. Definitely more my style.

Here are some bridges I run over. Wissahickon East Falls East Falls and Several Others

Mr B and I went to the Penn Relays, the oldest and largest track meet in the US. There were weird events like the distance medley relay (1200, 400, 800, mile) and the hurdle shuttles (4x110 (female) or 4x110(male), back and forth on the same stretch), as well as age group 100m dash, where former Olympians were still kicking butt, and a few Olympic Development competition groups where hopefuls were showing that they are, in fact, quite fast. Best of all, a kid from a high school in my home county won the national high school championship in the mile. He led from the gun. (But was nowhere near Alan Webb's record.) I also volunteered at the C&O Canal 100. So now I can run Western States. It was fun, mostly because it was gorgeous out and I just sat in a camp chair all day. This is only the second time I've manned an aid station overnight, and I was surprised how haggard people looked. "You look strong! You're doing great! How many fingers am I holding up? Men i...

Last week was pretty bad, with only 34.2 miles. My excuse is coming down with a cold on Thursday night, and having motorcyle safety/licensing class on Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The most interesting, if not the longest run of the week was Thursday evening's Bryn Mawr Running Company 's Media store run . It's always pretty lame on scenery, and largely just paved streets, but usually makes for good conversation and a really good pace (this time 6.55 mi at 7:29 pace). I never run that fast by myself, but can fairly easily do it with a partner to push me. But it's also on pavement. So which of those is the most important factor? I'll do some regression analysis and get back to you. Oh, and yes, the previous paragraph does imply that I took a motorcycle safety course . And I passed, so I now have my motorcycle license. I got the temporary permit a few months ago, but now I can have passengers and ride at night. And as far as I can tell, states recognize mot...

A very good week. Started strong, lagged in the middle, finished strong. 91.97 miles for the week. That's got to be the most I've ever run in a week without a race. Did a good 24 in the Wissahickon with MRB Saturday, then 15 more there today with a new Swat alum guy I met. He's from Colorado, so mostly we talked about how much better everything is out west. Here's a great picture I got of George and a new friend he made on trail. The other dog (whom I'll call Max) looked more like George than any other dog I've seen. Flying

Garmin keeps improving the web interface for their GPS watches ( Garmin Connect ), which makes me happy. It seems obvious, but they finally just added automatic monthly and yearly totals (instead of just weekly). So here you are: P.S. Do you use Garmin Connect and are a friend or acquaintance of mine in real life? Look me up on there.