One year after a DNS caused by injury, I’m going back to the race to attempt my first 100-miler.

One year after a DNS caused by injury, I’m going back to the race to attempt my first 100-miler.
This is the story of how I became friends with and virtually coached an unlikely ultrarunner in her first 24-hour endurance event. The story begins one month ago, and I admit, I was a little drunk.
Would our tent hold in the storm? Probably. I wasn’t worried. I actually felt calm, cozy and secure. I had developed a mindset of taking anything and everything in stride. Whatever happened, happened.
Whereas Stages 1 and 2 were like an appetizer and salad course, Stage 3 would be the Grand to Grand Ultra’s Supersized Full Meal Deal. It would dish up hot, hard roads; steep, rocky climbs; debilitating deep-sand tracks; gnarly, in-your-face vegetation; slippery slickrock, monotonous highway shoulders, and beautiful, baffling fine-sand dunes—relentless, towering, engulfing sand dunes.
I was completely unplugged, off the grid and rocking out. I was going native, kicking ass and feeling half my age. And it just kept getting better. Inevitably—hilariously—something had to harsh my buzz.
Spend the afternoon at a trail-running film showcase that features incredible, inspiring stories of runners and captivating footage of trails.
Want to know how to get or make full-cover gaiters for running through sand? This is how I did it for the upcoming Grand to Grand Ultra.
Very soon I’ll start the week-long Grand to Grand Ultra 170-mile self-supported stage race that goes from the north rim of the Grand Canyon to the pink cliffs of Southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Here’s what I plan to bring to get through an event that’s been listed with the world’s toughest ultramarathons.
At a 50K race, which I used as a pack training run for the Grand to Grand Ultra, one runner wondered if I was a Marine and another asked, in all seriousness, if I eat dog food.
Highlights from our family’s week in Costa Rica–where to go, what to do–and how one out-of-the-way small lodge in a river valley captured the essence of “pura vida.”