In January, I was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation (AFib). There were months of not feeling right leading up to the diagnosis, which I chronicled in an article for Ultrarunning Magazine. Considering my running career spans 30 years, with the last 15 years focused on ultramarathons of 50-100+ miles, the diagnosis was jarring. From the onset, the cardiologist was clear I…
Tag: ultra running
Running Through Loss
Before my dad’s decline, I was planning to run the Keys 100 for my tenth time and training for my sixth go at Badwater 135 this July. Excitement, optimism, and commitment fueled my runs. Then, my dad fell and was taken away in an ambulance, and I rushed from the Keys 100 pre-race gathering with my crew, and drove four…
Keeping Going
“Quitting is not an option.” – Marshall Ulrich I flew to Florida to see my dad over Memorial Day weekend. It was a last minute decision, but with May 22nd marking the 9th anniversary of my mom’s passing, it was almost as if I could hear her say to me that Friday in her just do it spirit, “Go see…
RESET: Long Haul 100
After getting injured during running Daytona 100 in December 2019, I was clear: I needed to heal up and recover well, as I had big plans for 2020, and at this point in my life, feeling good and enjoying running is critical to me. I immersed myself in cross training, cut way back on the running, and was studious with…
Risk and Reward: Tahoe 200
Pre-Race 24-hours before the start of Tahoe 200, a 205.5-mile endurance run that circumnavigates the magnificent and dazzlingly blue Lake Tahoe, by way of the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT), with occasional detours through aspen meadows, rock gardens, canopied forests, and ridge lines, I was petrified. It wasn’t the course and its substantial climbs and descents that frightened me by that…
ULTRA TRAINING: lessons in commitment, hard work, and daring greatly.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best…
Keys 100 – 2019: Reflections from a Movable Feast
Aside from being all things Hemingway, Key West is where I lived for a few years, it’s where I studied writing for many more years, it’s where I reflected for endless days and nights of my life and made some key decisions, and for the past eight years, it’s the destination that I have run to each May, during the…
Ultra-Humanity
I heard a new broadcaster remark this week that it’s important right now that we “do not lose faith in humanity.” It was in reference to the 11 people that were gunned down at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. It brought me back to classrooms on college campuses, and how after our lock-down drills I would worry about the…
Badwater 135 – Take 4 – Finding My Why
2015 was the first year that I was one of the 100 runners invited to run Badwater 135, “the world’s toughest foot race,” and ventured out to Death Valley in June to prepare and acclimate, and back again in July, to race. I was too nervous to fully appreciate the experience, although the imprint it made on my life, from…
The Desert
More than any other adventure in my life, running Badwater 135 has taught me about the long and winding road, the struggles involved in our journeys, the joys, the importance of teamwork and trust, and what it means to propel yourself forward in adverse situations. Badwater 135 has educated me about aspirations, preparation, and how to rebound when I spiral…