Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

This too can be yours. Oh, you must feel betrayed by age I'm reading from a later page    You can't hear me at your stage... — Oscar Brown Jr At the 2016 Ray Miller 30k start  today, I was chicked— yesterday. Waves of fine, talented women surged ahead and I was chill with all of it. Last time I'd done a 30k was probably 1987: the qualifier for the 1988 Catalina Marathon. Things were different then.  Snapping off a Pro Log But I was happy—I'd just recovered felony-function in my right arm. Six weeks earlier I'd skidded into an ER with a fractured upper-right humerus. As broken bones go, it was a stage 1 greenstick fracture: no bones sticking out of flesh, no cast or surgery. But it fucked up my life for the next 5 weeks. Hurt like hell, and all the rest. It was a replay of 2014's broken wrist.   More drugs, now. The Self-Aggrandizing Dean Karnazes-grade Race Report Bullshit Here I'd originally signed up for the RM50k. When things...

Pre-race go-go. The Santa Barbara 100 asks a tough question: are you ready to run two nights and a day? This is what happens when the start is 6pm Friday night, concluding 36 hours later at 0600 Sunday morning. The course is a lot tougher than the low-elevation would suggest, as it runs in the east-west Transverse Range  instead of north-south. This means you spend the day running in a complete furnace. There is minimal coverage, very dry and even fewer water opportunities. RD Robert Gilchrist has seemingly overcome a lot of bad PR regarding previously inadequate aid stations, awkward customer relations, and mobile dates. The aid stations I saw at the tail end were well-stocked, volunteers in good morale and attentive to the runner. Pre-race popane lantern ‪Macgyver‬ hack. Needed a locknut, used a ‪Corona‬ bottle cap. Yes, I had time on my hands. The Why I’m Here Part I wasn’t there to do a peripatetic Aid Station QC, but rather to pace Jeanne, who was looking for a re...