The Runner's Trip: Run Long, Travel Far, Discover More
trail running and travel blog by Sarah Lavender Smith
Some of you may have expected a UROY post in which I geek out about my Ultrarunner of the Year ballot picks like many esteemed blogging peers. I decided to write a middle-aged-mom diary entry instead with some real-life, empirically untested self-help tips.
During the last few weeks, people involved in this sport pulled me out of a funk and motivated me to run hard and with joy. I needed it.
My intention is not to advocate any strict nutritional plan, but rather, to share the process that worked for me, because I gave myself a nutritional tuneup and am happy to report it worked (for the most part … )
A guide to nifty things for trail runners that I truly recommend and discovered in the past year.
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.
You could call it “extreme fast trekking.” It’s hard to articulate how ridiculously slow and tough this mountain “running” is, but I’ll try.
I put off writing a race report because I felt the kind of turned-inside-out fatigue and brain fog that a new mother feels the week after giving birth.
I’m excited, but fear sneaks up on me. … Something unreal yet way too real happened that partially explains why I savor the purpose, focus, escapism and sense of control that preparing for the Western States 100 offers.
From my perspective as a child growing up in Ojai, the mountains that make up the Nordhoff Ridge always looked so big and far away. I could only reach them on horseback. On my last visit, I decided to step out of my comfort zone of running familiar streets and go up and along the […]
I was nervous, not so much about the competition—which was out of my league, attracting the country’s top ultrarunners—but about how I’d do compared to my younger self.