Race Report: On Letting Go

How're ya now?  Not 'sbad?

It's been a while since I last toed the line at a race - exactly 52 weeks and 6 days before the race of this report, I ran a 3k relay race mid-pandemic, but that was a massive rolling start and our team all started together.  I had volunteered for ultras and smaller road races since then, but the concept of running long distances for long periods of time was once again foreign to me.  

Fortunately, I had to get my shit together for the 2022 WSER race lottery, and needed a qualifier between November 2019 and November 2021 to keep my consecutive ticket count going.  There were effectively no WSER qualifiers during 2020 in Alberta and we had a non essential travel ban effectively through to mid summer 2021, so despite spending an entire summer volunteering for local events and gravel riding instead of getting long training runs in, I committed to getting off my bike at the end of August and racing a 100k closer to the end of October to give me the most time to prep as possible.  It was between Quicksilver in San Jose and Leona Divide in LA, both races that normally occurred in the spring, and I figured the latter would be saved for another year when I could swing by Disneyland on my way home.  (Not a joke.)

obligatory year end 2020-by-the-numbers-and-other-stuff note: yes i'm still here

in years gone past, this would have been a bunch of 'cutting room' thoughts and ideas left over from race reports that never made it to publication (ha!).  i didn't run a single race this year (assuming you're not counting a 3k relay race leg), so here's a couple reflections on the dumpster fire of a year we all had.  i hope you enjoy it.  

 

obligatory year end 2019-by-the-numbers-and-other-stuff note

“Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, can’t, sham, dogmatic ideologies, the pretenses and evasions of euphemism, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of empiric fact, common sense, and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled curmudgeon.”  

--Edward Abbey

Race Report(s): well that was a hoot....

.....but this life is not for me anymore.

no, i'm not retired; but despite having the freedom to do so, I'm just not inclined to put so much energy into running long distances in obscure locales for silly outings anymore. 

grab a chair, maybe a growler of a hard-to-drink stout or sour, because my rationale is stupid long and takes place over a series of months.  sorry not sorry.

Barely-passible Aid Station Cooking: Super-moist Sous-vide'd Wilford Brimley Special Non-Medicinal Brownies

do you find you sometimes need a boost of energy but caffeine is too much of a diuretic for your stomach?
do you like to pretend your aid station in the middle of bumfuck nowhere is basically the house of the witch from hansel and gretel?

Race Report: A Temporary Absence of Irreverence

Aldous Huxley once wrote that, “The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed.  Proficiency and results come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity.”  I, for one, am terrible at this, because for the most part, I think that most activities do not operate on non-linear laws of diminishing returns based on a horrible misinterpretation of a Chinese interjection at a very young age.  

Serendipitously, this year's Bighorn was just the punch to the throat I needed to rediscover the joie de vivre I've been lacking as of late.  

Barely-passible Aid Station Cooking: Super-moist Sous-vide'd Banana Bread

have you ever found your banana bread to be stupid-dry?
or that you committed yourself to an aid station which operates in a cold, dry winter where everything is susceptible to freezing and drying out?

obligatory year end 2018-by-the-numbers-and-other-stuff note

"I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” 

So, I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

--Kurt Vonnegut

Race Report: My Happy Place

If you've been following my adventures since Northburn Station, you'd know that this one has been a long time coming.  

And there is no TL;dr to it because it doesn't deserve one.  This one is going to be Odyssean, even by my standards.  So maybe grab a beer or six. 

Race Report: Obligatory Ass Pun Goes Here, Con't

Some of you, like myself, have probably been waiting for this for almost a whole year.  

My new love in my life, Marsha

Don't worry, you won't be disappointed.