Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

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...

It all seemed so klar, Herr Komissar. Sitting under Dwarf Bo Tree in the famed Corral Canyon parking lot under the late noonday sun, the shade was just enough to lower my core temperature down to brown dwarf levels. From there it was just the canonical 4.2 miles back to the Squirrel, a partial afternoon of temporized frolic in the Santa Monicas. But that was yet to come. Earlier that morning, I was a mere portent of a Jung Mandala. I was heading up the Pacific Coast Highway, where coastal fog gripped Malibu like Aimee Mann's implacably hostile indifferent lyrics. Once up Latigo Canyon, all was a crystalline harshness that promised a fine hot day. So much for the love of a blonde. Sunday was the Season's First Hot Training Run of the Rest Of Your Life. We've all been here before, and every year it gets flushed away. Hence, the joy of rediscovery. If gamma rays are subatomic iron molecules boring holes in your corpus delicti, then photons are their dilettante cousins, leaving...

I had only pondered the verticality of the Bulldog Road for a mere 19 minutes when I was stopped by an earnest young man heading down the mountain. His first query was in a dialect and demotic strange to me, but familiar. Upon a second request his plaint was made known to me, and was as follows: "Where is Corral Canyon?" Oh my young woodchuck, it is the better part of a league in the exact opposite direction you are heading. He was revealed to be a sincere young man, an Indian native from New Delhi, and had ambitions to be a Sierra Club Group Leader. This was the preview to the provisional hike prior to ordination in the order. Inexplicably I thought of several recent openings in various chapters after outings on Mt Baldy. I held my counsel. After guiding him safely back to Corral Canyon, I continued my gyre. It was a good day, a 21 mile trot "in the bag" so to speak, and my car awaited me 4.2 miles hence. The wind was at my back, and I was travelling at an average ...

My Half-Assed Culo Gordo The Homage to the epic Culo Gordo 50k was run yesterday in the Santa Monica Mountains. It followed the canonical route as laid down in the last century by the renowned "brujo-dybbuk" Devi Reinstein. I was late to the start due to an early morning drop off at LAX. I supposed if I hadn't flipped off the security goons and waved the gun I might have gotten there earlier. But I wanted the front-runners to have a fair chance. The morning was clear and sharp--nippleaciously perky in fact. The rain clouds of the night before had gone on to other locales. As I blundered up the trails out of Will Rogers State Park I wondered "Where's Meg Ryan when you need her? What's a tranquil Sunday morning without a loud cell-phone?" At the Backbone/Sullivan Cyn trail jct I could feel the heat of the front-runners. Their subtle imprints in the dirt led down into the canyon. I followed the yawns and butt-flares of the bobcat and cougar. At the bottom ...