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Photos from Summer 2016. 

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Summer 2016

On the last day of July, we pulled into a roadside rest stop somewhere in Iowa, nearing the end of a 15-hour push from Boulder, Colorado back home to Madison, Wisconsin. We dropped my baby brother Conor off at the Denver airport earlier that morning and began the trudge eastbound, making only one or two stops for gas bathroom breaks, before loading back into Darcy – our 2000 Subaru Forester – which had been our surrogate home since the beginning of June. This was the point when Piper – our twelve-year-old corgi – said enough.  

As the sun dipped below the lightly undulating farmlands that border Interstate 80, we began a five-minute standoff with our short-legged traveling companion. Piper forced all of her body weight down to the ground and refused to budge. The rest stop had green grass to roll in, farm fresh air – with just a dash of cow manure, and most importantly, was not in constant motion. Piper articulated what Caitlin and I were also feeling: enough of this.

We were fortunate to spend the better part of the summer on the road, following a haphazard map of U.S. highways. We travelled East to visit family in South Jersey and Maryland and seek out American pastoral in the Catskills and Shenandoah National Park; and then South to Austin, Texas where Piper and I kept Austin weird by holing up in an air-conditioned Airbnb while Caitlin poured over archived correspondences on Nigerian literature and publishing in UT-Austin’s Harry Ransom Library. The meandering route back to Wisconsin was a three-week detour: first through Santa Fe, New Mexico and then onto Pagosa Springs, Colorado for a 10 day working vacation at the base of the San Juan Mountains.

My 18-year-old brother, Conor flew in from New Jersey for the last leg of the trip. He is a rising High School Senior and it was one of his first forays sans-parents. Our mother made me promise to “be careful with the altitude!!!!” so we climbed Mt. Elbert – Colorado’s highest peak and the second highest summit in the lower 48 states at 14,443 ft. – on Day Two. We spent the next few days dirtbagging around the Rockies with my H.S. friend Jon, who now lives in Colorado Springs, in a world very distant from the small suburban town in South Jersey where we all grew up.            

The road was good to us once again, but two months is also a long-long ramble. I shared Piper’s reluctance to get back into the car on the twelfth hour of driving on the final day of our trip, but I am thankful that we did finally made it out of that rest stop in rural Iowa and home to Wisconsin.

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Three Days in the Ozarks

I pulled into the mile 24 aid station dehydrated, having drained the last of my lone 20 oz. flask 50 minutes prior. What I thought was a short two-mile out and back turned into eight miles, with two long, exposed climbs, and a steep off-trail descent through briar patches. There are no course maps or detailed course descriptions at Three Days of Syllamo. What—I thought—I knew about the first day’s course was that it would be twelve miles out, an eight-mile loop, and then twelve miles back. In other words, a “lollipop” design, and about 32 miles.

But I have just completed the eight-mile loop and I am still sixteen miles from the start/finish area at Blanchard Springs campground. An aid station volunteer, clad in only an American flag speedo and a cowboy hat, assures me there are only eight miles left to go as I fill up a second bottle of water. He offers a shot of whiskey, “for the homestretch!” This 50k is going to be at least 40 miles.   

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Three Days of Syllamo is 90+ mile stage race held every March in the Ozarks National Forest in Arkansas. The race starts and ends each day at a picnic area set in a deep hollow in the Blanchard Springs Recreation Area. Each of the three days ascend a different trailhead up onto the surrounding ridges, covering different sections of the hundreds of miles of trails that dissect the low-mountain landscape. All distances are approximate (somewhere in the range of 50k, 50 miles, and 14 miles on days one, two, and three respectively), the courses are lightly marked, and the vibe is decidedly low key. For many Three Days is a yearly journey; those who have set aside this weekend for many—if not all—of the race’s twelve years of running all conveyed a common message: this how ultras used to be.

It turns out the guy in the speedo was right. From the mile 24 aid station, I slowed my pace, took in fluids, and braced for a much longer day on the trails that I originally anticipated. When I reach the final aid station – mile 29 –the volunteers point me toward a new trailhead, different from the one I used to reach the same spot two hours earlier, with assuring words, “Three miles. All downhill.” I drop off the ridge, following a rocky creek-side trail, and a short twenty minutes later, arrive at the finish. Day One complete.

My main motivation for spending a long weekend in Arkansas wasn’t to race per se, but to experience new trails and a new part of the country. This was my first time in the Ozarks and the format of Three Days seemed as good of a way as any to take an extensive tour of the local landscape. Besides this, I wanted to get in a good block of training and nail down my race-day nutrition before another go at Bighorn in June. But then I found myself 25 minutes down after day one. I knew that day one leader Dave Kilgore was a very good runner. I’ve seen his name pop up intermittently for winning race in irunfar.com’s “This Week in Running” column and I remembered him taking the Rocky Raccoon 100 out on world record pace (for a 100 mile trail race) for the first 50 or 60 miles in 2015 before dropping out. There was still 65 miles of running left to go, but I was in quite the hole.

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Day two starts in darkness and everyone seems content to let a Three Days veteran take over as course guide until sunrise. My headlamp batteries are dying so I settle behind the second runner who has a bright headlamp and is carrying a second handheld light. Just past the dawn, I step around the leaders and begin pulling away from the wee-hours pack and Kilgore follows closely. My only plan is to stay steady and consistent all day. It’s a race, but I also want to treat this weekend like a hundred miler broken into bits and forty miles in is an early place to start pushing in a hundred-mile race. So when Kilgore continues running up a long steady climb ten miles into the morning, I settle into a hike and he pulls ahead.

The long day on Day Two is an out and back on the Sylamore and Ozark Highlands trails. The Sylamore trail reminds me of the Pacific Northwest. It winds in and out of deep cut gorges, crosses under and over rock outcroppings, and nearly always follows some form of running water. On the Ozark Highlands trail, in contrast, the terrain transitions from plush single track to rocky and off-camber. The route is blanketed by a layer of leaves which makes it difficult to discern the trail in the enclosed forest. I cruise along to reports that I am two or three minutes back from the lead until I see Race Director Steve Kirk on a dirt road climb into the “halfway” Aid Station. “When did you pass him?” Steve shouts. “I didn’t!” But apparently I now lead the race.

After the halfway aid station, the course continues out another 1.5 miles over rough trail before turning back along the same 25.5-mile route to Blanchard Springs. The turnaround is nothing more than some white warning tape blocking the trail and a paper sign that says “halfway.” The out and back format means that I will soon know how far off trail Kilgore got and if I gained a substantial lead from his mistake. Only minute after heading back up the trail toward the aid station I see him descending in my direction. A mile and a half later we are running together again and he tells me that he ran off course not once but two times, on both occasions finding himself back on the trail in third place and behind the women’s leader, Ashley Nordell, herself crushing the race, only five minutes back at halfway.

When we reach the next climb, Dave pulls slightly ahead, only to immediately turn left down a dirt road at the top of the climb and go off course for the third time in just a few miles. I yell him back on course, and rather than assuming another lead, he settles a few steps behind, allowing me to guide for the remainder of the Ozarks Highland Section. The course rejoins the Sylamore trail around 33 miles and just like he did outbound this morning, Dave owns this section of trail. I settle back into a familiar second place, watching my deficit grow on each switchback section until he finally pulls out of site.

With ten miles to go the trail crosses a small bridge which leads into the second to last aid station. I see Dave running out of the aid station – dubbed the “Party” station - right as I cross the bridge. A mustached dude in a unicorn costume fills my water bottle and alerts me, “He didn’t want to leave that early.” I make quick work of the aid station, filling my bottle, grabbing an orange slice, and exiting, but Dave is already out of sight. A mile later, however, I catch a glimpse of him on the trail ahead and make a concerted effort on a gradual uphill to close the gap. I pull within 30 or 40 meters before he looks back, sees me gaining ground, and throws down hard surge.

And so goes the next several miles. I slowly close the gap, Dave realizes that I am about to pull even, and then, to my frustration, finds that one extra gear and pulls out of sight until we repeat the process another mile later. After several of these false hopes, I approach a couple walking their two dogs. I slow down and they pull off the side of the trail, grasping the collars of their off-leash pups. I’m East Coast cordial, shouting instructions as I run by “There are more runners coming…you’ve got to get them on leash!” Less than a minute later, I hear a bark and whip around to the sight of one of the dogs – the big one – barreling down the trail. I stop dead in my tracks and the dog encircles me, growling. I yell “back off” and hold my hands above my head – a trick a learned a decade ago when spending a summer running dirt roads in southwest Virginia and mastered running rural farm paths in Kenya. F-this…I’m less than a minute back…In a damn race! I hate dog owners like this! It seemed like minutes passed when the owner finally reaches us, calls the dog away, and offers a tepid apology. I blurt out some choice words and turn down the trail in pursuit.              

Only a mile to go and Kilgore is back in sight, but I am completely over this racing thing and ready for post-race luxuries like washing off the mud and blood that is caked to my legs, cooking up an early afternoon breakfast of eggs and bacon on my camp stove, or just sitting down on the ground for a few minutes. I am still convinced that I will catch him, but secretly hope that he will be over racing as well and we can jog it in for a tie. However, that thought is also short lived. I didn’t notice in the darkness of the early morning that the final descent into Blanchard Springs is a long set of rock stairs. It’s a jarring welcome back toward the finish area and closes the book on any remaining hopes I have of ripping the final descent and winning the race. After 51 miles, I return to the start/finish area, the second day’s gap just 28 seconds.

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The racing part is clearly over by Day Three, but my legs are surprisingly peppy after a conservative first mile. I move at a steadily hard effort along a gently rolling section of smooth trail on the first section of the course. The route eventually leads us up a briar-ridden gully which connects to an upper loop along a large ridge and occasionally opens up expansive views of the Tennessee River. Dave plays the same game of appear and disappear over the first 2/3 of Day Three, but it is clear that I am not going to overtake him. I resign to finishing second in all three stages and settle into a steady cruise to the finish. Less than two hours later I am back at Blanchard Springs and awarded a finishers rock.   

On Saturday night – after most Day Two racers had finished – a guy in an old VW van pulled into the group campground and set up next to me while I cooked a second helping of eggs and bacon. He drove all the way from Dallas just so he could run the third (short) day of the race. “I’m too old for all that running, but I can’t miss this event,” he tells me. “They do it the right way here.” I nod. I get it. I am still very new to this but my three days in the Ozarks helped affirm what I enjoy most about long trail races. Visit a new place. Spend hours (or days) running and playing on beautiful and challenging trails. Share that experience with others. Not make a big to-do over any of it.    

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Orcas Island

Powerline trails are designed as utility corridors for running pipes, electric wires, and machinery. But in the vernacular of Rainshadow Running, the race organization that puts on the Orcas Island 50k, “powerlines” more correctly denotes a steep and slippery climb some 20 miles into the race. The trail ascends 1,600 ft. in less than two miles, hitting—so I have heard—a 50% grade at points. The top of the powerline trail leads into two miles of snaky single track which descends into dense old growth forest, before climbing another 1,000 ft. over one mile to the top of Mt. Constitution, the highest point in the San Juan Islands at 2,398 ft. above sea level. This five-mile stretch, which goes from mile 20.5 to mile 25.5, is undoubtedly the crux of the fifty kilometer course.

Masazumi Fujioka and I hike side by side up the powerline. Wherever the trail levels to a slightly more reasonable grade we switch to running, upping our moving pace for ten, twenty, maybe thirty meters at a time, before relenting back to a hike. About a hundred feet above, we can see the race leader. He pauses intermittently, one second here, another two there, tempering his effort up the relentless climb. As the climb progresses we inch closer, finally settling into a jog and moving into first and second place overall about halfway up the climb. There are still ten miles to go.

I had low expectations coming into Orcas after months spotty training, aided by a fractured hand, holiday travel, a broken-down car…excuses. But now there is no doubt now, I am deep in this race. I have only a vague mental picture of the course ahead, but I spend the second half of the climb plotting my move. I THINK I am more relaxed as we ascend the muddy, rutted trail. I’ll cruise over the top of the climb, let my heartrate and legs settle after 25 minutes of hard hiking, and then GO!

We crest the powerline and Masazumi quickly transitions to a fast running cadence. Taking full advantage of the plush downhill and winding blind turns, he is out of my sightline in less than a quarter mile. My plans to relax and then surge, it turns out, are little more than a mid-race daydream. He’s just won the race.

Several miles later, I stumble into the final aid station. I motion to the splint on my right hand and manage to convey between gasps for air that it is broken. I can unscrew my bottle perfectly fine, but at this point I need pampering. I learn that the leader jumped ahead by three minutes and ran through the aid station without stopping. There will be no responding to that kind of surge on this day. I’m gapped and instead of rushing out of the aid station in pursuit, I pause, and appreciate the panoramic view of the San Juan Islands afforded from atop Mt. Constitution, and then begin the hard six-mile push to the finish.  

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Following the spine of the east coast, December-January 15/16.

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Circling back to fall

In the days that followed the Bighorn 100 in June, I began to feel the itch for another long and strenuous race effort through the mountains. By the time we returned to Madison at the end of the month, my mind was already full of race possibilities. However, within a few weeks’ time, it was apparent that the physical and mental toll of the race/training build-up/trip would force me to take a more low-key return to regular outdoor activities.

For the first time, maybe ever, running feels unhurried and (largely) unfocused. And that’s a good thing. I have a hard time not going 100% in when preparing for a distant competition or goal. Although I love fully embracing the process of a long and ambitious training build, the aftermath, too often, has left me unmotivated to return to a daily routine of simply getting outside each morning and moving. Sometimes I stop running for months. From 2011-2013 I didn’t run at all. For most of 2011, I set my alarm each night before going to bed with the full intention of waking up and heading out the door clad in athletic attire. And every single morning at 6:30, when the alarm began to beep, I hit the off switch and continued my slumber.  When people asked me why I stopped running, I would respond, “Because I hate it.” But here I am.

In Wisconsin since December, I am experiencing the natural, deliberate movements of one season into the next in a single place for the first time since high school. The last two years I missed fall entirely. I was researching things overseas in Kenya (and Tanzania and England) that might someday become a dissertation, while back home (somewhere) leaves turned to red, and to yellow, and then to brown, as days became colder and shorter. A year is a long time, and I am beginning to realize that there is no need to treat any one day, month, or even season with the same approach or intensity as the previous one, or the next. This late-summer and fall has been very different than what I envisioned in back June, yet ever worthwhile.      

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Back in June of 2004, right after completing my first year of college, I set out—along with two cross country teammates—for a good long drive. We headed westbound from Pennsylvania through the unrelentingly uniform Ohio and Illinois and into the gentle green hills of Missouri and Kansas, before finally ascending Colorado’s Front Range to the start of the Rocky Mountains. There we stopped and we stayed, in Frisco, Colorado, a tiny mountain town that sat in the shadow several of the larger, ski-oriented resort towns that dot Summit County. I spent the next few months exploring high alpine meadows and single track trails in surrounding national forest land, while working at Quiznos to cover the expenses of my summer adventure. The following summer I headed west again, this time to Yellowstone National Park, where I worked in the employee dining room at a park location called Grant Village. I also made my best efforts to put a solid dent—running, hiking, and backpacking—on the 1,000 or so miles of trails that dissect the world’s first and finest national park. Halfway through that summer a co-worker and I quit our jobs, bummed a ride to Boise, and then caught a bus to Portland where we spent a few weeks exploring the Columbia River Gorge and the Oregon coast. Life, or at least that summer season, was too short to be tied down in one place working. Eventually I made my way back to Yellowstone to meet my dad, who had scheduled a trip out to visit months earlier. Shortly thereafter we flew home, back to the east coast, where I was to begin my third year of college. At that point in my life I expected, without a doubt in my mind, that the undertakings of those two summers would reflect the general tenor of things—life, wanderings, movements—going forward. The west, the mountains, it all made sense to me.

Except then it stopped. I left school for a semester, dropped back in, discovered academia, and spent about a million years of graduate school trying to become a historian of Africa (I’m still trying). Summers were not wasted, but they were tied to other commitments: language study, research trips, archives, interviews. I had almost forgotten about those mountains and my twenty year old self’s vision of days ahead when from the embers an idea materialized to race one hundred miles—Wyoming’s Bighorn 100. For good measure I decided to tack on a nice long drive on either side of that race. Because I was fortunate enough to have that luxury. Because I wanted to recollect the reverie inspired by those same mountains years prior.

Caitlin, Piper, and I left Madison on June, 8 and returned on July, 1. We began by touring the expansive grasslands and sylvan black hills of South Dakota, next turning northbound to the low-key college towns of Missoula and Bozeman, Montana, crossing and then returning again to the Bighorn Mountains so that I could reconnoiter and race. On the last legs we met up with my family in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks before driving south to the high aspen groves of central Colorado where Caitlin’s best friend, Alee moved just weeks prior.

Now I am in Madison, checking back into the “real world,” to life as professional student, to a dissertation that has barely begun. But just days removed from the road, distant race possibilities feed a new restlessness.

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Lows in the Bighorn Mountains

Thirty eight miles into the Bighorn 100 and I am half-lying off the side of the trail dry heaving. The nausea began barely four hours into my day making food nearly impossible to stomach. For over two hours I have been sustained only by intermittent sips of water and I have gone from running comfortably in around ninth place to a sluggish stumble, stopping every few minutes in hopes of settling my stomach and retrieving some mental alertness. Close to twenty runners have passed in the last hour. Sundown is only probably two hours away, but I neglected to pick up a headlamp at mile 30. I never saw things going this far south so early and now I have to dig deep—really deep—just to make it to the turnaround at Jaws Aid Station before dark. Where I will be warm and safe. Where I can pull the plug on this race gone awry.

This is the sort of situation you never envision in all the months of preparation leading up to a first hundred mile race. The prospect of wanting/needing to drop out less than halfway through the race was unfathomable from the moment I hatched the plan to run the Bighorn 100 nearly a year ago while sweltering away in a small, damp rented room in Old Town, Mombasa. The race, or the idea of the race, was a beacon at the end of months of difficult fieldwork in Kenya. A centerpiece in a multi-week road trip that Caitlin and I planned and discussed to make the thousands of miles of separation more manageable. You don’t think about the massive low points when devising ambitious travel and racing plans. You don’t think about dropping out.

I limp into the mile 40 aid station. The sun is quickly retreating behind distant hills that mark the turnaround point a thousand feet above. The aid station consists of a tent, a campfire, and a few generous volunteers. There’ll be no dropping out here. Just like the aid station volunteers that hiked into this spot earlier into the day, I will have to make it out under my own power. I begin explaining my day…nausea, hours without food, light-headedness…a woman hands me a cup of ginger ale. I take a tentative sip, and then another, and by the time the cup is finished my mind and body are already coming back to life. I accept another cup of ginger ale and then fill my hand bottle up with half ginger ale and half water. Though temporarily revived, I know I need to really push to make it to Jaws before dark. To drop out safely.

Except now I start passing people. The countless runners that flew past me during the previous stretch are coming back one by one. Many had stopped to ask if I was OK or to offer water, salt, a gel, just a few miles earlier. They give encouragement as I move past, excited by my apparent revival—the ultrarunning community really is special. I stop thinking about how I will explain to Caitlin that I am dropping out when I get to Jaws. I am finishing this damn thing…

…hours and hours later I crossed the finish line at Scott Bicentennial Park in Dayton, Wyoming, ninth overall in 22 hours and 35 minutes. The slow evening ascent to Jaws, no more than 42 miles into the day/night, was the last time I had any thoughts of not finishing my first 100.

Photos: 

1&2: getting in some course recon at Dry Fork and near the Jaws turnaround

3: the scene at Dry Fork Aid Station near dawn (photo credit Caitlin Tyler-Richards @ctredits)

4& 5: with my crew dog, Piper, at the start and finis (photos by @ctredits) 

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Inclement weather derailed my racing plans at the Quad Rock 50 last weekend. After a week of heavy rains the race directors had to make the tough call to cancel the race to prevent damage to the trail system. I traded 50 miles and 12,000 ft. of climbing on trails outside of Ft. Collins for a few days meandering down Colorado’s Front Range, visiting friends and exploring local summits.

1. Near the race site at Horsetooth Reservoir 2. the Flatirons 3. Sunny morning in Boulder Mountain Park 4. Hiking above Boulder 5. Jon at dusk above Colorado Springs 6. Four inches of snow on the climb up Mt. Sanitas 7. Garden of the Gods  

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Building

Near-future race ventures will take me to the mountain passes and high altitude trails of Colorado and Wyoming. However, the southern Wisconsin landscape does not feature extreme topographic relief. My will to prepare means creating elevation gain on the gentle undulations of Madison’s lakeside trails. I spend five, ten, twenty laps trudging up and bombing down a wooded mound that rises 150 feet above lake level. Hours memorizing every possible route up the East and West Bluffs at Devil’s Lake State Park. A full morning plus a little afternoon traversing the Ice Age Trail in Kettle Moraine State Forest, careening over drumlins and small depressions created thousands of years ago by receding glaciers. Southern Wisconsin is not a land of great contrasts, but then you start looking.

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A race and a change in seasons

Two Fridays ago I went out for a short shakeout run along one of Madison’s many frozen lakes. It was two degrees outside and even at 7a.m. the sun’s reflection off of the snowy landscape was strong enough to make me consider becoming a person that runs in sunglasses (but with great restraint I pressed on, naked eyes and all). A few hours later, I hopped on a plane to Tampa and unknowingly bid farewell to winter 2015.

One early October morning, while still in Kenya, I signed up for The Georgia Death Race, a 68 mile race in the north Ga mountains scheduled for mid-March. After submitting the online entry, I hopped on a bus for a short 2-3 day research trip, only to arrive and find out that I had no place to stay. By mid-afternoon I came down with a high fever and I ended up spending a restless night on the floor of a storage room attached to a friend’s relative’s house before heading back to my home base. The appropriately named Death Race was a doomed idea from the start. With a clearer head, I altered my plans in January and decided instead to open the season with a flat 50 kilometer tour of sandy and swampy Floridian trails. The trip to Florida doubled as a chance to spend a few days visiting with my grandparents who live an hour from the race venue, the Green Swamp Wilderness Preserve. I figure the greatest gift I can give my grandfather at this point is a story that he can tell over and over again. I am hoping the one about the time I came down to visit them to run a 31 mile race is a pretty good one.

While the race, Dances with Dirt—Green Swamp, was only a small step in my build-up to toward the Bighorn 100 in Wyoming in June, my excitement was palpable in the few days leading up to the race. Even though 90% of my running since late-January had been done on packed snowy trails, I felt fit enough to go into a race and actually race it for the first time in almost five years. The best part about being prepared for a race—or any endeavor really—is that the race becomes almost uneventful. I know most do not feel this way, but in all of my years running the part that I enjoy most thoroughly is the preparation. For the first time in many many years, I stepped onto a starting line with a block of meaningful training as a precedent.

From the start of the race I ran relaxed, chatting with a fellow competitor named Adam, pressing down the pace ever so slightly as the miles passed. After the initial 6 mile loop, I saw my crew (my dad) for the first and only time all day and I caught sight of the race leader, a Gainesville local named Shawn, on a long straightaway a couple of miles later. He disappeared ahead and I did not see him again him until the aid station at mile 13. Pulling into the aid station for water right as he was leaving, the pressure was finally on. For the next few miles I stalked the lead from 20-30 seconds back, making enough noise at the semi-regular swamp and creek crossings to signal my immediacy. Just before 20 miles I made a committed push for the lead. With luck, the following miles were mostly off-trail running through high grass and bogs, quickly putting me out of his sight line. I reached the 26 mile aid station at the start/finish area having achieved some separation over preceding stretch and was able to relax and enjoy the final five mile loop which mostly consisted single track trails that meandered through the adjacent campgrounds. I crossed the line in 3:41:17, about three and half minutes up on the second runner, earning a coveted statue of an armadillo holding a victory beer.  

Madison seemed foreign when I returned a just few days later; sixty degrees and clear of any snow. Mornings now begin in pitch darkness, a result of our society’s illogical need for biannual time changes. While darkness makes the initial steps of my morning ritual an even more uncoordinated stumble, springing forward also means reveling in the sunrise above Lake Mendota each and every daybreak. Green Swamp was gratifying as a return to racing and a positive signpost in my pursuit of long-race fitness. But for now it is back to muddy trails, fiery morning skies, and the constant inertia of a new training cycle.

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Winter

A few minutes after six o’clock each morning I stumble from bed, kill my watch alarm, and grab at a pile of worn spandex and tech wear on the cold hardwood floor. A scoop of peanut butter, a glass of water, a trip to the bathroom. Fifteen minutes and I am out into a world that makes living in the upper Midwest a conversation topic. “Wisconsin must be so cold.” Winter in Wisconsin means grey skies, biting winds, and sub-zero temperatures (before factoring in wind-chill). Winter also means empty streets, first footsteps on silent snowy trails, and daily renewal.        

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Since beginning graduate school in 2008 I have shuffled my car and most of my possessions from various residences (first in Athens, OH and now Madison, WI) and storage locker (that I call my parents basement) in southern NJ 1-2 times every year to accommodate research-related travels. The lone perk of these ritual moves is the freedom to meander home and back by the scenic route of my choosing. Whenever possible, I have traveled south before north to drive through, camp, run, and explore the southern Appalachian mountains. While my research engenders feelings of dislocation, I always discover a deeply satisfying sense of place when visiting these mountains. Having completed my dissertation research in Kenya and England, last week brought another move back to Wisconsin, by way of western North Carolina, along with Caitlin and Piper.

1: Beginning the new year with a hike 

2&3: A sunrise run in the Newfound mountains 

4: Still getting the hang of the selfie

5&6: Foggy paths to the summit in the Newfounds, day 2.

7: Piper soaking in some history at the Cumberland Gap

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Devil's Lake as winter approaches

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Visual reflections from a long run in Lickey HIlls, West Midlands, England.

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These Old Shoes

“Because of their lightweight construction and fewer materials, runners should generally expect shoes from the PureProject line to last approximately 250-300 miles” –Brooks.com

Thirteen hundred miles of running later and I can say Brooks is full of $hit. I brought one pair of shoes with me to Kenya, Brooks Pure Flows, which I picked up at the Moorestown Running Company just before flying out of the US in June. The outsoles have lost almost all discernible tread, the uppers have developed a few holes, and some of the small pods on the mid foot have fallen off. By necessity, I picked up some industrial strength welding epoxy somewhere around mid-trip and on more than a few occasions put my inherited fixer-man skills to work (thanks, Dad!) by gluing the mid sole and the upper—which developed an annoying habit of detaching along pretty much the entire forefoot—back together. Listed at 8.4 ounces, my Pure Flows weigh in a few ticks heavier these days, not only from dried epoxy, but from months of irremovable mud pasted on various areas of the two shoes. Exceeding manufacturers recommendations by a thousand or so miles may not be the best practice, but I’ll be damned if the cushioning doesn’t still feel entirely adequate, when properly glued on of course. Despite their resiliency, tomorrow will be a sad day. Last week, I left the coast to kill away my last few days in country while waiting on documents to be delivered in the Kenya National Archives. Tomorrow morning I will go out for one last romp on the rolling dirt paths in the Nairobi Arboretum and then hop on a plane to England where new shoes (and cooler weather) await.      

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FIeldwork

Note to future researchers: showing up outside of a stranger’s house unannounced, in running shorts, with 45minutes worth of a hot morning’s sweat drenching your t-shirt may stir up some suspicion. This will be doubly the case if your stated reason for doing so is to check out some really big rocks on the far side of their farm plot.

A couple of weeks back I sat with my most important teacher for all things Mijikenda and he told me about some large rocks that were associated with the earliest inhabitants of the coast, called (among many, many different ethnonyms) the Asi (Wasi in KiSwahili). The histories of autochthonous former hunter-foragers in coastal East Africa has become something of a focus in my research of late so I knew this was a place I wanted to check out. My teacher suggested that I head past Pangani, a mere 4 miles from where I am staying in Ribe, and ask people to direct me to Wasini. So I did just that, the easiest way I knew how.

After six miles or so ambling over rocky dirt roads and a few brief stops to ask directions I arrived at Wasini. What I had not anticipated was that Wasini was someone’s mudzi or homestead. No sooner had I exchanged early-morning greetings with the owners were they firing questions to try and figure out what a sweaty mzungu in running shorts was doing so many miles from the nearest tourist enclave. You see, in the last year or so Kenya has instituted an initiative called Nyumba Kumi or “Ten Houses” in order to better promote peace and security. The idea is that you are supposed to know—some might argue spy on—your neighbors and report any suspicious activities—vaguely defined—to an appointed local representative. In the past my situation would have been really weird. These days it is borderline illegal.

Having not gone through the proper channels of obtaining clearance from the local Mzee wa Nyumba Kumi I thought my field trip to ancient rocks at Wasini was going to end with the view from the side of the road. Luckily, when the owners switched from Swahili to KiKambe to discuss the situation I saw a window of opportunity open. I made a quick code-switch and apparently made convincing enough use of my seriously lacking Mijikenda language skills to alleviate major concerns. Ample name dropping also may have helped the case. Actually, I think it was mostly that they were just really kind. With permission granted, I made my way to the rocks and spent 20minutes climbing around in the hot sun, taking in different vantage points, and snapping a few pictures. From a research perspective, the trip was hardly a game changer. Still it was interesting to explore a neat area and receive further confirmation that the notion of the weird distance runner translates well across cultures.

A few shots from Wasini:

I even included a selfie because my mom will like that.