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.

Race Report: To Be Human Again, 2018 ed.

I've always dreaded the inevitability that one day, I'll execute a race so flawlessly that my corresponding race report would sound boring and dishonest.

Thankfully that day was not during the 2018 100mi version of the Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance Runs (TRTER).  

also, because i am concurrently training to be a ninja there are no public photos of me on the course again [yet].  sorry.  (not sorry.)   (Edit 07/31: I found one!)
there may be choice gifs here and there though for the lolz.  

#foreshadowing

Race Report: Not Today

It's been a long half-year since I last posted, and more since I last wrote a race report.  I was worried that writing this would be particularly onerous as I wasn't sure if I was able to inject the same color into my prose the way I did in reports previously.

Thankfully, Mother Nature had my back during the 2018 108k version of the River of No Return (RONR) Endurance Runs and ensured that my experience would be ridiculously eventful.  Buckle up--it's a long one, and in a historical first, one with no photographic evidence that I was actually on the course.  

(it's been strava'd though so it did happen.)

obligatory year end 2017-by-the-numbers-and-other-stuff note

We're on a planet that somehow knows how to rotate on its axis and follow a defined path while it hurtles through space!  Our hearts beat!  We can see!  We have love, laughter, language, living rooms, computers, compassion, cars, fire, fingernails, flowers, music, medicine, mountains, muffins!  We live in a limitless Universe overflowing with miracles!  The fact that we aren't stumbling around in an inconsolable state of sobbing awe is appalling.  The Universe must be like, 'what more do I have to do to wake these bitches up?'

--Jen Sincero

not the same Jetta as 2015.
also, my daily is not a Jetta.

Race Report: Detox Just to Retox

longtime readers will know that the last time i had a legit off-season was between 17 January and 7 May of 2016.  since then i've been racing either monthly or bimonthly at the very least, and needless to say....it's getting fairly onerous.  it's not the same type of burnout i had after my 24h run in 2015 that culminated a 5-month stretch with a monthly 99mi+ run, but as of late i've been definitely viewing my training regime as a chore.  furthermore, despite my race history reading like a masterclass in destination racing, lately i've been more stressed out while out of the office than when in the office because of the fires i had to fight from far far away.

you could say i wasn't getting much enjoyment out of running anymore.