Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

A strong visual always nails the concept. "A man alone with his thoughts lives in a crowded house" —Don Juan Castaneda,  "Conversations With Maestro Sevende Sandia" Seconds before the start I realized I’d left my hand-held back in the car, a quarter-mile away. Holy Shit! So I sprinted back, got it, and burst through the start. And everybody had gone. This was a definite first, a DFL start with Boner Mileage. It was a fitting preview bookend to my 10:00:35 DFL finish *. The start was a clear, calm and very cold 28F start, a sharp drop from the balmy 44F at home. All you Midwesterners can go fuck, it's SoCal. I was feeling totally naked, and only half-afraid. It was so cold, that even the venerable John Vanderpot wore long pants. Ultra-couture aside, staying ahead of cutoffs at this late stage was my only goal. Say goodbye to my little friend As this is a physical sport, your body makes its wishes known clearly. Gwyneth Paltrow should take note.  At ...

Latest addition to the Book of Ultra-Numbers. I raised SKT Mastery to whole new depths at Saturday's San Juan Trail 50k, finishing 14min after finish cutoff. This is a career first. Back at the campsite, I got out the matches and built a fire. ‪#‎SlowAndShit‬   First time for everything. I was playing it pretty conservative for the first 20mi. Figured I could hit the last 11 in 3 hrs. Wrong-O. Stride tightened up, trail got a lot more technical up to, then down Holy Jim, then up Horse Thief to the Divide Road. It wasn't until the last 2 miles off the top did I remember something Andy Roth had told me [letting hips relax, rolling into the stride] that I was able to open it up. But then it was too late. When I crossed the finish line, I joked with RD Baz Hawley that it was only 23 years earlier, I'd done the late San Juan Trail 50-Mile. "And you're just now finishing!" Remember the hunters? they weren't looking for deer...they were looking for s...