The Runner's Trip: Run Long, Travel Far, Discover More
trail running and travel blog by Sarah Lavender Smith
Could I successfully race for three days straight? Could the organizers pull off their idea for a trail-running “festival”? How the heck would they shuttle hundreds of runners for hours each day to trailheads on the edges of the national parks? Turns out, the transportation became a part of the adventure.
The story of my client Jami Sutter shows how careful, steady training and mental determination can lead to a highly respectable mid-pack finish in a grueling stage race. Jami answers questions about the highs, the lows and the lessons learned.
I’m eager to get the word out about ways I’m helping others—maybe YOU?—learn about, prepare for and reach the finish line of the next Grand to Grand Ultra.
2014 was a breakthrough year for me, so I indulged in a year-in-review to highlight a lot of the best moments. Happy Past Year, Happy New Year!
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.
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.
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.
Stephanie Case, whom I got to know in 2012, has the courage to do all she can to help protect and stabilize the displaced population of South Sudan. Here’s our conversation about what it’s like to live, work and run in the midst of a humanitarian crisis and in the face of a very real […]
Lynne Hewett, an Aussie trauma nurse in NYC and my tentmate at last year’s Grand to Grand Ultra, has done the most crazy, most extreme events of anyone I know. Here’s a Q&A about how and why she does it.