Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

Wet/Wiped. LG in the chair, not looking forward to the last kick up the "hurtical" KD Trail. Jorge Pacheco won the Mt Disappointment 50k in 5 hrs. It took me 10hrs. Based on the entry fee, he paid twice as much per hour than I did for all that fun, not to mention heat, dust and dreams.  This course would be a fine introduction for those who've been led to believe in "California Carpet Trails". Had they been there yesterday, they've wished that they'd stayed home where it didn't get above 80º, and see their brows unfurrowed by inconvenient clouds blocking out the neutrino storms that are just par for this course. For the veterans out there, this race course was the mutant love-child of the bygone Lost Boys 50 and Bishop Mule Run 50k. The West Fork of the San Gabriel is examined thoroughly from high and low—crossing it at least 4 times, with lengthy run ups and outs to sun-blasted slopes where water is a seasonal memory far in the pas...

The line between an interesting experience and a life-changing situation is very subtle. Denial and wishful thinking are not useful training modalities.  Want to do that race? Take that trip? Totally undecided?  Allow the DNF Analytic Indicator/Predictor & Oracle help you analyze your situation, with all factors reduced to Three Main Elements.  It will tell you everything you want to hear.

Its what you need, what you need. My pre-race crystal visions were shattered at 0445 by Norteña music. From 300 yards away, the musicians plaintively elucidated all the primary infinitives of estar, cantar, llorar, mandar and so on. For this I waited 10 years since my last ultra? I silently thanked el Profesor Mauricio for bringing me two steps further into knowledge. Slowly, I began firing on one cylinder, which took a while. After bleeding the master-line, I synchronized my watch from a sundial, because gnomon is an island unto himself. Due to the mist, my astrolabe was useless, but it mattered not.  The parking was now filled by cars with "26.2", "140.6" and similar stickers on them. This alerts thieves that they can steal skanky socks and shorts that smell like ass if they only wait.  RD Luis Escobar, in full authoritative charro regalia, gave an epic hellfire & damnation notification after the orientation speech—"If you come to me saying I go...

I'm going to aim for the knockout points right up front, and flat out tell you that the ideal pacer is above the average runner, and a tough, lean, canny guide and wily co-competitor for the above-average runner. The ideal pacer is an expert, the ghillie for the hunt here, and if you're gunning for a buckle, all the positive help you can get is for the better. However, we all start at the beginning. If this is your first time pacing, think very carefully about the following: Are you up for "running" [or not] above or below your comfort zone? Do you have romantic notions about the task ahead of you? This encompasses both overt or cryptic attachments to your runner [provided you know them], and/or the business about being out all night and the brutal part of the day. Have you run at night? More than once? On the course? In bad weather? Do you have an urgent, time-sensitive appointment Saturday or Sunday? Too bad. You'll miss it, guaranteed. ...

Your race reality should be so clear. Hanta ho, truthseekers!   From The Endurance Suburb Of The World®™, the 24th AC100! All the putatively anointed pre-race favorites saw their races end prematurely. Jorge Pacheco and Keira Henniger were done by Chantry. I suspect Jorge's exit was accelerated by prancing around at Badwater 2 weeks earlier, when he should've been tapering. Don't know what happened to Keira, can't comment or speculate, which cripples another life on TV. Mine, not hers. From the top of Baden-Powell, I had less than 20min to myself before Jorge Pacheco hove into view. More on that in a bit. I'd spent a restless night camped out at the base, complete with phantom memories of pre-race nerves. Quarter moon, stars, utterly delicious. It wasn't even my race, but 20 years of direct connection to the AC100 beast has left a deep imprint. Jorge was first over the top around 0800. I had just settled in 15min prior, after a sleepless night down in ...

Desdemona and Terrazzo break it down for you again, reliving texts you wished you hadn't sent, as found on "Texts From Last Night". Recorded at Hellmouth PolySci, in Hellmouth CA.

Meet Desdemona and Terrazzo. Thanks to the fun-loving folks at xtranormal.com , these upstanding generic cartoon characters will now explain Mysteries of Ultrarunning to you in ways you didn't imagine. Or tell you "So, You Want to Be A Lawyer". Yawn. "Chariots of Fire" it ain't. Momma told you not to come anyway. Here, have some salt.

Terrazzo and Desdemona relive the agony and ecstasy of running 100 miles at the Angeles Crest 100-Mile Endurance Race.

Terrazzo and Desdemona take you through race day at the legendary Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run.

Desdemona and Terrazzo reminisce about the Wasatch Front 100-Mile.

Stairway To The Leadville 100 The famed Leadville Trail 100 Trail Race is lovingly described by your hosts Desdemona and Terrazzo.

Desdemona and Terrazzo are featured in a dramatic reading of "A Poem For Spring", wherein a dewy maiden proclaims her troth to the virile and enigmatic Forest Prince.

An office romance explores the differences between men's and women's notions of sexuality.

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Geoff Roes in the final 100 yards of his record-setting 15hr 07min Western States 100 win. Finish line at Western States 100, Auburn, CA. June 26 2010. Today I'm going to slit the throat of some sacred cows. First out of the box was this on-line hilarity: "When your runs aren't fun anymore", which cited the following: running not fun tired legs discomfort Oh my. If I'd quit when "running wasn't fun" I'd never get past the 50-yard line. On a downhill course. Meet our constant companion, homeostasis . Briefly, it means "The ability or tendency of an organism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes." In plain language: never moving off your comfort zone. Common example: people hovering in a Costco parking lot trying to get the spot closest to the door. It usually involves a lot of ass-time. You're going to have to step out in order to move up. This past weekend I was on a run 20% l...

A real runner, not me, a long time ago. Smøüldering Midget X commenced under a brightening gray-light with a breathtaking roster of talent. The event sponsors were pleased at the massive turnout which would maximize viral marketing efforts for D&L Holistic Industries' " Trail Porn Light ", Offshore Vacuum Party Gmbh, Hannah Montana Man-Bras, and "Sturdy, the Feral Mule" Outdoor Leadership, LLC. In the end, this event would yield a surprising new development to the traditional " Thing 1/Thing 2 Kontest fur World Domination®™ ". Since Ian Torrence was a no-show, I moved up a full 3 places. Full deets below the jump. THE PERSONALITIES MISS MIWOK In a category all her own, she'd expressed pre-event speculation that as a rapidly-aging, over-the-hill mother of a young daughter, would be slow, etc. In a rare lucid moment, I didn't bet her on the outcome, and so did not forfeit the pink-slip to my car, house, speedboat and ATV. She also ...

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Nostalgia Ain't What It Used To Be Getting back in shape hurts. I was haunted by what I knew what I used to do. I'm not trying to recover my youth—I needed to recover a new definition of fitness, and decided that I had to start pushing it again. I lucked out. There's a gym in the office park I work in. I can ride my bike 10-1/2miles from home, into a shower. What a luxury! Looking around the gym, I noticed weight machines, and the hook: a free physical assessment. The verdict confirmed the anecdotal: I'd put on 20lbs over my prime fighting weight, my arms were Gumbyesque, torso and core strength was kinda sad, and my Hannah Montana man-bra was getting snug. What to do now, middle-aged man-child? I had the nice fitness pro cook up a program to build strength and fitness. She did, and two days later, I was shown the exercises. Soon my arms burned, my torso screamed, and I was pushing out sweat beads the size of buckshot. I hurt. A Further Definition of a Boombastic Lifest...

Abdullah is opening the charcoal bag, while Mr Trail Safety watches, photo by Richard Gassan. “I forgot the cooking pot” We silently considered our situation. Camped out overlooking the epic Jebel Shams Gorge in the Omani Hajar al Ghalb, we were up a very long dirt road from the last village. We pondered the options. Pasta was out, now we were looking at a rapidly fermenting bread, dates, some hard cheese, and maybe some other goodies. The loaf was sliced, I had some of the hard cheese, while Richard smeared honey on his slice. We’d make it. The wind was cool and steady, and deathly cold by Omani standards. Looking around, there was a family camped several hundred yard away, a merry fire blazing in the draw. Behind us was a dome tent, and a RAV-4. We began to hear male voices joking in Arabic. We both began to wonder if they were going to spend the night drinking and breaking shit, but it was too early to tell. “May I ask you men a favor?” We looked up to see one of our Omani neighbors...

Get a grip, and give yourself a hand! August 18, 2009 The Boy Scouts Of America National Council voted this week to retroactively issue 50,000,000 Onanism Merit Badges to all surviving Boy Scouts who had been members from 1910 through 2008. The vote passed 69-12, as the council members squinted through thick glasses and raised hirsute hands. Reaction at the announcement was swift. Social conservatives were enraged, with Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity decrying the move as "weakening the moral fabric", and "a stain on the nation's honor". Ann Coulter flippantly suggested that the Boy Scouts were "Taliban Butt-boys", while Sarah Palin suggested that the Boy Scouts had "given in to terrorists". Lou Dobbs intoned that his sources definitively pinpointed the origins to southern Mexico, in any era. Rush Limbaugh was conspicuously silent, having never been in the Boy Scouts. Liberals took a different tack, suggesting in large part ...