![My 99-Mile DNF: Running the Issy Alps 100](http://yitkawinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/P6250062-150x150.jpg)
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](http://yitkawinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/P4150008-150x150.jpg)
(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)](http://yitkawinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Cham-150x150.png)
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](http://yitkawinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/P1160375-150x150.jpg)
“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](http://yitkawinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Annie.YitkaWinn-150x150.jpg)
“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](http://yitkawinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Alone-150x150.jpg)
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…
![Canyonlands National Park](http://yitkawinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Canyonlands-150x150.png)
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…
![Feet on a trail covered with fallen autumn leaves](http://yitkawinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/HappyFeet-150x150.jpg)
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?](http://yitkawinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/P1140552-150x150.jpg)
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…