My 99-Mile DNF: Running the Issy Alps 100
Two weeks ago, on a total lark, I hopped on a plane to Seattle. Mission: visit friends, enjoy legit Thai food (sorely lacking in western Colorado), and take a stab at completing a relatively under-the-radar route through the Cascade Mountains…
Beautiful, Cruel Patagonia—My Ultra Fiord Race Experience
(Warning: This is a “long read.” Grab a cup of coffee and settle in.) Two months have passed since I traveled to Patagonia to run the Ultra Fiord 100. Until today, despite ample previous attempts, I haven’t felt able to sit…
My Wonderful Life™ (On Instagram)
I’ve come across a number of articles in the media lately criticizing Instagram for giving us all distorted, unrealistically perfect impressions of one another’s lives. In ESPN’s heart-breaking story about Penn student Madison Holleran’s suicide, the author wrote, “Checking Instagram…
Existentialist Crisis 2015, aka San Juan Solstice 50 Race Report
“It’s a waste to chase the pipe dream of a magical tiny theory that allows us to make quick and detailed calculations about the future. We can’t predict and we can’t control. To accept this can be a source of…
Only Small Things: Reflections on Excess
“You think you have to want more than you need. Until you have it all, you won’t be free.” – Jerry Hannan, “Society” This week, I’ll be moving. Again. My ninth move in the past seven years. In the weeks…
The Secret That’s Haunted Me
Once upon a time, a boy I’d recently started dating peered into my eyes and asked me, “What’s your secret?” “Huh?” I said. “Everyone has a secret,” he said. “So. What’s yours?” It was the most intimate question I’d ever…
In Praise of the Desert: A Road Trip
I am not a desert person. I know some of these people—the “desert rats”—who feel at home, at peace, among the sand and stone and open sky. I am not, at least by nature, one of those people. I do…
Why I Quit My Job
I quit my job last Friday. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made, because I have the kind of job that I’ve spent my entire young life working to get. The kind of job that’s taken me…
Is Ultrarunning—or Any Other Great Passion in Life—Sustainable?
Fall is no doubt in the air here in Colorado. The aspen leaves are paler than ever after a summer basking in the sunshine, faded from their original deep green to a sort of lime-y yellow, well on their way…
What It Means to Tell the Truth
When I was little, I was very insistent about the fact that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up—but not a journalist. An author, yes; a novelist, yes. As the fiercely independent daughter of a longtime newspaper…
