Greetings from the Appalachian Folk School in Mountain City, Tennessee, where I’ll be posted up until next week when I attempt to run a women’s supported fastest known time of the 71 mile traverse of the Great Smoky Mountains, AKA the Smokies Challenge Adventure Run (SCAR)! I spent this past Thursday through Saturday doing reconContinue reading “Three Days in the Smokies”
Category Archives: Training
Promise Land 50K Tomorrow!
Greetings from the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia, where in a day’s time I’ll be joining over 300 runners in racing the Promise Land 50K. Yesterday I ran from Sunset Field on the Blue Ridge Parkway down to Apple Orchard Falls and back, which many consider the most beautiful and challenging part of the course.Continue reading “Promise Land 50K Tomorrow!”
Don’t Think, Just Run
This morning as I woke, the line between dream and reality was a bit blurry as I came to. I didn’t even remember falling asleep the night before. I felt around and under my pillow in the dark until my hand enclosed around the silicone case of my phone. I tapped the screen to checkContinue reading “Don’t Think, Just Run”
Looking Within
As I tend to do, I’ve been dreaming up possibilities for the future. I feel physically recovered from the Appalachian Trail, though the emotional aftermath still comes and goes like aftershocks following an earthquake. I’ve run 60ish miles per week for the past 14 weeks with more vertical feet than I’ve ever covered outside of the AT.Continue reading “Looking Within”
Look at the Bigger Picture
On my 38th day on the Appalachian Trail after setting off at 4:00am with aching, blistered feet, I walked through the lush forest of the Green Mountains in Vermont as the sun rose. I tried to wrap my head around the gigantic task that lay ahead in completing nearly 50 miles before midnight, and per my unintendedContinue reading “Look at the Bigger Picture”
Forest Park Tour de Nasty
Yesterday I set out to run the Forest Park Nasties in their entirety in a route known as the “Tour de Nasty”. The entire run is around 67 miles with 13,500ft elevation gain and an equal amount of elevation loss. What are the Forest Park Nasties? According to Pete Carleson, they’re a series of routesContinue reading “Forest Park Tour de Nasty”
Hellgate 100K: Rain and Shine
Prologue: The Fall On Thursday, November 7th, just after 4:00am in the Nantahala National Forest of North Carolina, I climbed my way up a steep, rocky trail to the top of Albert Mountain. It was cold, dark, and the wind was howling. My headlamp and the flashlight I was carrying lit the way, though IContinue reading “Hellgate 100K: Rain and Shine”
What Are You Afraid Of?
I kicked off Boston Marathon training in January with an interval workout on the Portland waterfront. It was one of those perfect nights for running. Cool, dark, and windless. I used to run the waterfront at night all the time, but between starting a running club and coaching a high school cross country and trackContinue reading “What Are You Afraid Of?”
What I’m Looking For: CIM Recap
Two weeks since running CIM, yet I’ve barely been able to stop. On the one hand, that race was everything. Not a day went by in 2018 when I didn’t think about the impending journey from Folsom to Sacramento. On the other hand, it was just another Sunday in the swirl of work and generalContinue reading “What I’m Looking For: CIM Recap”
The Twisty Turny Road to CIM
My pursuit of marathon greatness has been a tumultuous path, to say the least. I began 2018 in an upward swing, running one PR after another in the mile, 5K, 10K, and half marathon. I had a seemingly perfect build up to the Rock ’n’ Roll San Diego Marathon in June, pictured above, only toContinue reading “The Twisty Turny Road to CIM”
