Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

This is what a deluged SOB50k looks like when you're pulled. Of course if you were faster you missed out on this. A massive winter storm front rolled in on the rescheduled Sean O'Brien 50, and hit it squarely in the face. In the Pacific Northwest that's an average day, but here in SoCal its a shocker.  The race was torched out of its original Malibu locale by the Woolsey Fire. Now it got drenched in its Verdugo Mountains relocation. It couldn't catch a break this year. The original field of 250 was 93 DNS—for many runners driving from outlying areas probably bagged it on justified fears of highway closures.  I was looking for a sub cutoff 50k finish, but didn't get it. The race was called shortly after noon as local mudslides and washouts prompted the Verdugo Mtn park authorities to call the race, the end. Those of us out there when it was called were credited with a 30k finish . Wet-Look Fashion Victims At the starting line from my jaun...

I didn't choose it, it chose me. 'All happy ultras are alike; each unhappy ultra is unhappy in its own way.' Dr Sevende Sandia, obscure Mexican mystic Normally this story begins as One Man’s Challenge—the original plan of a 50-mile ShoppingKart Odyssey; and was thwarted when the cart did not leave the Gelson’s lot. And therein lies the story of redemption, and how the sport of ultrarunning was spared irreparable harm as a result. Read on. Or skip ahead to the fart jokes and trail porn further down. Scenic Chavez Peaks on a sunnier day.   PREQUEL to The Morning Skinny The Sean O’Brien 50 was my first 50-mile race since 1999, where I DNF’d at Leona Divide. On a wild notion I signed up for it, the course was the same one I’d first starting trail running on in 1990. Course begins and ends at Malibu Creek State Park—a 14mi stem with a 22mile loop through Zuma Cyn, then back to the barn. The 100k, 50k, and marathon were run with wave starts on variations of the...

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...