Adventures in Onionism

Hello from the slopes of Le Prarion above St. Gervais-les-Bains. I arrived in Geneva early this morning, stupidly having watched movies the whole flight rather than sleeping. A couple trains quickly got me to St. Gervais and then I hiked myself and my two backpacks full of race gear 2,700 vertical feet up the mountain to my cousin's husband's family chalet. (Thank you N & S!)  It's adorable and has terrific views of whatever mountains those are across the way (in the opposite direction of Mt. Blanc). I'll probably stay two nights then hike up over the rest of the mountain and down to Chamonix, and continue on my way to Courmayeur, where I'll be running Tor des Géants, a 330Km race with 80K+ feet of vertical gain. It's going to kick my butt for days. I had to go back down into the village to hit the ATM and get some food. It was a great run down, but then once I was there the weather was very threatening. I ate some quick pizza and asked if there was a taxi s...

I just ran the inaugural Standhope 100 in Ketchum, Idaho. I was very excited for this race--it was billed as an "unforgettable single-loop trek completely circumnavigating the Pioneer Mountain Range of central Idaho" that is "NOT an easy course." I looked at the course map and elevation profile and expected gorgeous views , akin to the Hardrock of Idaho. Instead, I had a 90 degree F 6PM start along several miles of highway shoulder, subpar aid stations, subpar course markings, a lot of gravel road, pavement to the finish, one truly excellent high pass, and a lot of mixed feelings about the race. On the plus side, the race started and ended in downtown Ketchum, which was extremely convenient. I flew to Boise and rented a car, as I wanted to see extended family and visit gf's family inherited property on the trip. However, if you wanted, you could fly direct to Ketchum and you wouldn't even have to rent a car. On the negative side, this meant 4.5 miles of pav...

If I haven't told you already, we're moving to Reno. Moving is stressful. Trying to find renters or a decent property manager for short term rentals is stressful. My work is making noise like I may have to go back to DC, despite the new agreement with the union, so that's stressful. Summer heat really kicked in in the desert so it's hard to do long runs, or sometimes any runs at all. So this week was rough.  But I took off with Margo and George to the Sierra for the long weekend. (Amy is out of town.) We headed to Horseshoe Meadows and went over Cottonwood Pass to see a bunch of the Golden Trout Wilderness that is new to me. After the first four miles we didn't see a soul. We just finished a 50K and are camped at over 10,000 feet on the shoulder of Kern Peak. Hope we don't freeze tonight! Oh, yes, you read that right, both my dogs did a 31 mile day. I love these two! Margo carried the dog food backpack most of the day and was a pro. George was a big baby when I ...

 I just got home from running the San Diego 100. This is the only 100-miler I have ever officially run more than once (unofficially I did the Western States course before running the race.) I like seeing new places and generally have little desire to repeat things. I've repeated 50-milers and 50K, mostly because Mt. Diablo and Rodeo Beach are gorgeous, but also it's nice to occasionally have an apples-to-apples comparison of my performance on the same course with the same amount of elevation gain. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the course of the San Diego 100 changed since I first ran it in 2011, so this isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. Start   I wasn't sure about my fitness level going into the race. I've done some long hikes in the past couple months--I tried to hike from my house to San Gorgonio, I did a loop of the Baldy Marathons with 9,000 feet of vertical gain, and last weekend I did two big runs in the Bay Area--but I would call my training neither ...

I ran the Sean O'Brien 100K in Malibu Saturday. Mistakes were made, but I finished. I haven't been training a lot in the last two months since my PR at CIM, and I'm mostly fine with that. It was nice to get my Western States qualifier out of the way early in the year, and it was nice to go to LA and see friends I haven't seen in a while. ("What!? You have an 11-year old kid? Wow, guess I really haven't seen you in a while.") Anyway, the race was nice enough. It's got an 5:00AM start, which is good for getting the second climb in before the heat of the day, even though it made it for an early wake-up and cold start line.    Malibu Morning The course was shortened slightly due to some recent trail damage, so it ended up being under 59 miles. I felt fine, if not exactly fast, through the first 50K. I was on roughly a 12-hour pace and counted something like ~25 runners ahead of me on out and back sections. I thought I'd likely slow down in the second h...

I ran the Calico Ghost Town 50K this past weekend. Gf ran the 30K. The race starts and ends in the middle of main street of the ghost town, which is a county regional park. No big deal, but it was nice to get out.  I finished in 5:27, which is pretty good but not great for me--it's my tenth fastest out of twenty-six 50Ks that I've done. In a longer race, my goal is usually just to run instead of walking a larger fraction of the time. In this race, I ran pretty much every single step that wasn't obviously too steep. So that's nice, but I guess to progress I'll have to actually do better on how fast I'm running, not just whether I'm running. My goal was to run under 5:10, which would require 10-minute miles. I managed that through 12 miles, but only managed it for 5 of the remaining 18 miles.  Oh well, it was fun. I had a great conversation with a fellow racer where we barely talked about running at all and instead talked about crows, desert tortoises, and gro...

Alright, here are the races I'm planning to run this year. For whatever reason I've really got my mind set on Tor this year, but it's lottery-dependent. I'm told I can buy/charity-donate my way in if I don't get picked, though. It's time for another 200-miler, and a gorgeous one in Italy that was Lucas' favorite sounds like a good one. It's also time for the pandemic to be over so I can get back out there for a full year of racing, plus international travel, and maybe a couple concerts. So obviously this plan is full of contingencies. Sunrise Bold =already registered  *=Western States qualifier  January 23: Calico 50K  February 5: Sean O’Brien 100K*  February 26: Yucca Valley 5K (ha!) March 8-10: Barkley (waitlist, very unlikely)  April 3: Cherry Blossom 10 Miler April 7-10: Istria 100M (Croatia, currently unlikely to actually do this.)  May 7: Wild Wild West Marathon/50M (Lone Pine, unlikely due to travel plans) May 21: Bishop High Sierra 50M/...