Although I enjoy the diversity of obstacle racing, the target audience always intimidated me—big, burly guys with shaved heads who wanted to crush me. I didn’t want to crush anyone. I mostly just wanted to run a lot.

To my relief, I discovered at my first Spartan race that this was very much a trail runner’s world. I ran circles around the bigger guys, slipped under and over the obstacles, and finished strong despite my lack of veiny muscles. My confidence was restored.

Now the 2013-2014 Spartan season is kicking off all over the country, and I’m honored to offer one free race entry to a lucky reader.

This entry will get you into ANY open Spartan race in the Continental USA. There are events of varying distances all over the country. Check out the Spartan schedule HERE.

You can also use this URL to generate a 15% off code for any Spartan race.

If you’ve never tried an obstacle race before, I’d strongly recommend entering.

HOW TO ENTER

To win the free entry, simply leave a comment on this post answering the question: “What makes you a warrior?”

If you share this giveaway on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, or any other form of social media, you get an additional entry for each time you share. For example, if you share on Facebook AND Twitter, that’s two extra entries. (Leave a separate comment telling me where you shared.)

The winner will be chosen randomly on May 31, 2013.

Good luck!

SPARTAN RACE VIDEO

Direct YouTube Link HERE

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Check out my book: The Summit Seeker

My ex-boyfriend used to jokingly call me a farm girl. Part affectionate and part derogatory, he meant that at my true nature, I was happy living the life of the lower class. I wanted physical labor, not office work. I wanted my hands in the soil and my back under the sun. He implicated that I wanted the burdens of the uneducated, the ignorant, and the poor, even though I had gone to school and passed myself off as an intellectual writer.

My ex wanted me to deny his accusation. He wanted me to say that farm work was beneath me—that white walls and high ceilings were more “me” than heavy lifting and manure. But I could not say that. I could only smile and say:

“Yes… I would be happy as a farm girl.”

And my ex would smirk.

As I outgrew that relationship, I made peace with the acceptance that I was not the child-bearing, Hispanic housewife I was groomed to become. I learned that it was okay to love both words and wilderness—both barns and books. I sought to separate myself physically and emotionally from the macho culture I grew up in.

A few months ago, I was reunited with my aunt and other extended family members at my uncle’s house in Los Angeles. In an effort to find some common ground, I asked my aunt why my parents ended up in Canada when the rest of the family lives in California. She simply said they had papers in Canada. We moved on to other subjects, but what I really wanted to know was why my family had traveled north.

Did my mother hear the northern calling that echoes in my ears? Did a compound in her tropical blood pull her toward rugged lands? Did my parents feel, despite the fact that they were leaving the only country they had ever known, that somehow they were heading home?

It’s hard for the traveler to find a home. Everywhere we pull in, there are things about that place that I immediately love. I can always see myself living in a new destination, and in many ways it feels like “home”. Then the next place feels like home as well. And the place after that. Then I realize that I’m a turtle and I am carrying my home on my back. Comfortable in any setting, I can just duck my head and fall asleep in the safety of my tiny shell, no matter where we park. In the morning, I poke my head out to the wonder of a new place. I run around and explore it, then pick up my home and keep trudging.

What is it that calls me northward? I believe it is a wild place. A longing for nothingness. A space where land, mountain, air, and water are enough. A place where there is no need, nor room, for roads, parking lots, or shopping malls. I want to feel a northern breeze on my face, to round a corner and find myself staring unexpectedly into the eyes of a musk ox. I long, perhaps above all things, for solitude.

We are in Southern Oregon now and I am amazed at how fast the time has flown. Soon it will be summer and we will be in Alaska. The solitude I seek has already begun. We have missed races we love and friends we adore—opportunities where we could have been surrounded by crowds and merriment. Instead, I sit at the North Umpqua trailhead and type silently in a cubicle of trees and waterfalls. A single track 78 miles long stretches out before us and I know that when we get up to run it, we will be alone—just Shacky, Ginger, and myself.

Somehow, it is enough.

We all have a northern calling. It may not draw us to Alaska, but it always stretches us just beyond our comfort zones to a world where simplicity is sufficient. It doesn’t always scream, but may whisper gently, “Just one more step…”

If we follow, we find ourselves north of where we are today—one step higher, in a wild and wonderful land.

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Check out my book: The Summit Seeker

Share a picture that means ESCAPE to you.

Here’s mine:

To understand the significance of this photo, we need to rewind to one year ago today. I was days away from permanently leaving my cubicle job in San Diego, spending my last few office days wrapping up paperwork and training my replacement. We had just bought the Rialta RV, our new home, and Shacky was nervous about quitting his job.

There were so many unknowns in our future. We had no idea how to live in an RV, how or where we would shower, whether we would run out of money, or how the animals would handle our travels. It took Shacky another couple of weeks to quit, a move that was far from easy for him.

Fast forward to the day this photo was taken. We are climbing Walter’s Wiggles to get to Angel’s Landing at Zion National Park, one of the most beautiful areas I have ever seen. I look up at Shacky and catch his reaction as he first spots the tight, steep switchbacks going straight up.

Pure bliss.

We are so far removed from where we were one year ago. We have escaped everything.

No longer financially secure, contributing members of our modern society, we have managed to escape “real life”.

An escape from rush hour.
An escape from cubicles.
An escape from crowds.

Now we fall asleep under thick starlight and wake up to glorious sunrises. We set our eyes and our feet on rugged landscapes–sometimes water and sometimes mountain, but always new and secluded and wild.

We’ve escaped.

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Check out my book: The Summit Seeker

When I heard that Google Reader was biting the dust, I panicked. I follow a lot of blogs, and the thought of losing them terrified me.

I chose feedly as my new reader, and have been very happy with it. I also took the time to do some blog house cleaning. I went through my list, deleted the mediocre blogs, and ended up with a power list of 187 blogs that all contribute something valuable to my life.

Most of these are running blogs, but not all of them are. Here are eight of my favorite non-running bloggers. I have nothing to gain from pimping their blogs, but I wanted to share the awesomeness.

1. The Minimalists

http://www.theminimalists.com/

Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus write about living a meaningful life with less stuff. A word of warning: Don’t go here unless you are prepared to spend hours clicking on link after link, tearing through archives and devouring their articles.

Milburn and Nicodemus take minimalism to a whole new level. Most people are content to write one post on this topic and feel they have covered everything. These guys dissect every aspect of this lifestyle and their blog really hits home for me. They have also authored seven books, several of which are best sellers. I cheer at the end of all their posts.

2. Nomadic Matt

www.nomadicmatt.com/

Matt is a travel guru. His goal is to show that travel doesn’t have to be a two-weeks-out-of-the-year thing, and you don’t have to be rich to do it full-time. Matt quit his cubicle job in 2006 and set out looking for adventure off the beaten path. His tips go way beyond what you’ll find in mainstream vacation-focused articles, as he offers the inside scoop of a well-seasoned traveler.

While my blog touches on the awesomeness of travel, Matt’s blog gives you all the tools to make it a reality for yourself. He writes: “I’m here to show you that it’s possible to travel long-term without a lot of money. People always say to me how much they would love to do what I do… I’m here to tell you you can do it too.”

3. Huckleberry

http://huckberry.com/blog/

This bi-weekly web magazine collects some of the most awesome tidbits around the web that I have ever seen. Subjects range from art, photography, food, astrology, and science. There is nothing they don’t post that doesn’t interest me, even though the topics are so far from my go-to subjects.

If you read nothing else on Huckleberry, check out Where Children Sleep, a recent post I absolutely loved. It’s a good example of the type of stuff you’ll find on here.

4. Zen Habits

http://zenhabits.net/about/

Leo Bubauta is an author, runner, and vegan from San Franscisco. He writes about simplicity and minimalism, offering applicable tips for transforming your life. His posts take my own ideas of happiness and minimalism to a deeper level.

What’s unique about this blog is the no-frills layout, complete devoid of advertising or distractions of any kind. Bubauta embraces a bare-bones lifestyle and blog—there are no other sites that look like his. A second interesting aspect is that Bubauta’s writings are uncopyrighted. He believes in free sharing of his words and shuns the concept of “owning” ideas that can help others. Unreigned, his thoughts have spread to more than a million overall readers and 260,000 subscribers.

5. mnmlist

http://mnmlist.com/

This is another Leo Bubauta blog. It shares the same principles and no-frills layout as Zen Habits, but the content is fresh and stands alone. I find Bubauta to be more personal on this blog, and his unusual lifestyle as an extreme minimalist intrigues me. Some of the things he has given up include:

• Car
• Home or health insurance
• Debt
• Facebook account
• Smartphone

He writes: “I’ve just found them to be unnecessary in my life, and I’ve removed them to make room for things I love more.”

6. The Art of Non-Conformity

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/

Chris Guillebeau is a writer, entrepreneur, and world traveler on a mission to “help people live unconventional lives, make their own choices, and change the world.” His blog offers “unconventional ideas for remarkable people” and he recently completed his personal quest of visiting every country in the world by his 35^th birthday. Guillebeau is a fascinating person with lots to say, and a great writer.

One post I very much enjoyed: Why You Should Quit Your Job and Travel the World

And another: Lessons Learned From 11 Years of Travel

7. Tynan

http://www.tynan.com/

Tynan was one of the early inspirations that planted the bug in my head about moving into an RV. He lives a full-time nomadic life and makes the majority of his income online. I remember reading his blog more than a year ago and thinking, “I could do this!” His book, The Tiniest Mansion, was the first one I read on RV Living. We ended up purchasing our Rialta largely based on his recommendations, and it’s still the perfect RV for us.

I really admire Tynan’s drive, work ethic, and thirst for adventure. In some posts he can come across as a young, cocky rich kid, but all things considered he’s quite mature for his age. I sometimes disagree with what he writes, but he’s never boring to read (he once put a 3100-gallon swimming pool in his living room because he wanted to buy a penguin). I’m a fan.

This recent quote on his blog sums up Tynan’s outlook on life: “I have a really strong desire to be the best person I can be. Not in the Army reserves sort of way, but eliminating weaknesses and building strengths. I think it’s a ridiculous privilege to be alive, and I want to make the most of that. I have a human mind, so I want to sharpen it. I have a human body, so I want to strengthen and protect it. I have fellow humans, so I want to relate to them better, learn from them, and benefit them however possible.”

8. Barefoot Angie Bee

http://www.barefootangiebee.com/

I’m thrilled to squeeze Angie into this list (technically, she doesn’t blog about running anymore). Angie’s blog first gained popularity back when she was running barefoot, and she became a household name among shoeless runners. Angie was one of my earliest inspirations for pretty much every physical activity I do now.

More recently, Angie reduced her running due to health reasons and began a beautiful transition. I have been inspired to watch Angie blossom into yoga, applying many barefooting principles to her new practice. It was because of Angie that I first introduced yoga into my daily routine, and I never miss a post from her.

Happy Reading!

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Check out my book: The Summit Seeker

We picked up our first hitchhiker off the street today. Like most people, I was raised with a “healthy” fear of hitchhikers. Lately I have been more open-minded about picking people up, but Shacky was still refusing to stop.

This morning, we were sitting in a parking lot when a guy who appeared to be in his 50s came up to the RV and asked for a ride. He was carrying only a bedroll and a water bottle. Shacky said no. As he walked away, I noticed he was wearing Vibrams and mentioned it to Shacky. Then I hopped in the front seat and waited to drive away.

Shacky paused, and asked if we should give him a ride. I ran after him and called him back. His name was Narayana.

Narayana is joyful, chatty, and gives off an aura of excitement and adventure. He grew up in an extremely restrictive Christian home and two weeks ago he danced for the first time in his life at age 58. When he learned I was a writer, he insisted I write this down:

“Life goes out of its way to make you joyful. We’re the ones that mess it up.”

While some consider us brave for adopting our nomadic lifestyle, we are constantly running into people like Narayana who make us look like hoarders living in luxury. We have so many amenities and comforts in our tiny RV; I am honored to share what we have with these brave travelers.

People are awesome.

Some bonus quotes from Narayana:

“I was surprised how hard it was, but I had to go (travel).”

“This is the first time I’ve actually been with people who have the same views, the same experiences. I’m excited!”

“The less you plan and the more you follow your intuition, those are the things that give you the best surprises. Everything works out. Let the universe fill in the spaces.”

“What day is it?”

“How do you eat? Where do you get water? That’s the kind of stuff I’m learning to let go. Don’t worry about it.”

“Find out who you are.”

“At the root of everything, there’s just pure luck.”

Thanks for the company, Narayana. Happy travels.

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Check out my book: The Summit Seeker

While some people have fond memories of themselves as children, with days full of opportunity and innocence and mornings spent chasing puppies and rainbows, my own memories are clouded with the uncomfortable sensation of a complete lack of control. It is a fear-based aura assuring you that something bad may happen at any moment, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

It has been years since I’ve felt that old panicky chill, like a frigid hand creeping up the back of my neck—until the day of the Boston Marathon 2013.

I was exploring a nearby creek with the dog as we boondocked outside of Zion National Park. My boyfriend Shacky was able to pick up some 3G and checked his Facebook account. A few seconds later, he informed me that someone had detonated two bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line. We knew nothing else.

My first reaction was disbelief, followed by worry for my friends who were running the race. The feeling was magnified by the fact that we didn’t have a reliable wifi connection or phone service. Off the grid, we didn’t know our friends were safe until a couple of days later.

After Zion, we visited Sequoia National Park. I spent the drive reading various blogs of people reacting to the bombings. I knew the feeling: that something bad could happen at any moment, and there was nothing we could do about it.

It took me a long time to process the Boston events, so instead of sending my under-developed thoughts out into the blogsphere, I sought refuge under the towering sequoias. Many of these trees had stood for at least one thousand years and had known both suffering and despair. What could they teach me about tragedy?

Back in the 1800s, park rangers scrambled to put out the natural forest fires they believed threatened the sequoias. Although they were successful, the rangers soon noticed something unusual: The ancient trees stopped growing.

Richard Hartesveldt took it upon himself to investigate this puzzling matter. He learned that these magnificent trees were resilient enough to survive even the most intense fires, and depended on wildfire to clear out their competition for fertile ground, a reliable water source, and sunshine. They were difficult to destroy. (If the trunk of the General Grant sequoia tree were a gas tank on a car that got 25 miles per gallon, you could drive around the earth 350 times without refueling.)

Hartesveldt’s most fascinating discovery was the fact that the wildfire heat was responsible for prying open the sequoia’s pinecones and releasing its seeds. Sequoia seeds would fall onto the ash residue from the fires—the ideal fertile ground for baby trees. These babies would someday soar to an average weight of 700 tons—more than two fully loaded jumbo jet planes, transforming what was once a hotspot into a deep, dense forest floor. Millions of seedlings would sprout after a single fire.

Sequoias need fire. Their nature is to take root in the midst of adversity.

Lewis L. Davis was the first civilian park ranger in the early 1900s. He moved into a cabin on the park’s property and patrolled the grove for seven years, patiently raising sequoia seeds and learning more about their relationship with fire.

A century later, I ran through the forest and stopped to caress the deep burn scars at the base of the powerful trunks that Davis had cared for. These trees not only overcame adversity, but used tragedy as a tool to develop a new generation of giants.

In life, there will always be fires. It’s a natural reaction to panic when we smell the smoke. But as the heat starts to rise in our own lives, we should think of the sequoias. We can’t always control the fire, but we can always stand resiliently among the flames as proud examples to those who will someday run here.

The above is my contribution to the book The 27^th Mile, an anthology by runners for runners. All proceeds will support the victims of the tragedy on Boylston Street at the 2013 Boston Marathon. Learn more about this project HERE.

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Check out my book: The Summit Seeker

As a preacher’s kid, I often saw my dad conduct marriage counseling. In his office, he kept a standard Marriage Counseling Questionnaire that he would hand out to each partner separately. They were instructed to complete it alone, without consulting their mate. My dad would then take the answers, assess them, and focus his sessions based on the responses.

The questions were meant to expose differences and highlight potential reasons for divorce, covering a broad range of topics. The most common themes were finances, expectations, and family values. Did she want kids while he didn’t? Did he expect they would live with his mother?

As a teenager, I would thumb through the questions and imagine that when I chose my own life partner, I would have it all figured out. We’d be on the same page about everything.

It didn’t work out that way.

The first partner I chose was perfect on paper, but less ideal in real life. We nailed the questionnaire, but something happened afterward that I had not at all factored into my future.

I changed.

I changed my mind.

I changed my passions.

I changed my outlook on life.

He didn’t change with me, and I found myself angry at the questionnaire. It had promised me a happy marriage. I had studied and aced the exam, yet somehow still failed.

Fast forward to a few years later when I started sizing Shacky up as a potential mate. I didn’t care about his financial stability, his job prospects, his religious beliefs, or whether or not he wanted kids.

I asked him only one question:

“Do you think you will ever get bored of running?”

He paused to think, then answered.

“No.”

“Okay,” I replied. “I’ll move in.”

And that was that.

This sounds like an idiotic way to start a relationship, but for me it was a valid question. Through the most turbulent and unpredictable years of my life, my love of running had been the only constant, growing stronger with time.

Over the past few months, I have watched with curiosity as many of my friends have lost their running mojo, renounced racing, given up ultras, or just moved on to other interests. Many have claimed to be “bored” with running, a concept that Shacky and I discussed while climbing to the top of Nevada Falls at Yosemite National Park last week.

Why weren’t we bored of running? We bounded down the dirt trail and mused about it.

How does one get bored of running? We gazed out over the roaring waterfall and theorized.

When I wasn’t reading the Marriage Counseling Questionnaire as a teenager, I also enjoyed the quirky tales of a silly girl named Margaret in Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. It’s a diary-like collection of prayers that record both the mundane and exciting details of Margaret’s pre-pubescent life. She prays about growing boobs and embarrassing moments.

I approach running the same way. It’s something I come back to every day, like a diary—through both the mundane and exciting.

Are You There Running? It’s Me, Vanessa.

Running for me is not in itself something I can get bored of. Perhaps we get bored of our weekly training routes? Maybe we are bored of specific race scenes? But running itself is just a form of movement, like driving or walking to the fridge. If we are bored of driving to work, are we really bored of driving itself?

In my training for Zion 100, I took a step back from high mileage running to incorporate some cross training. I did some Crossfit-inspired workouts, and a lot of yoga. Although I enjoyed those activities in different ways, at mile 30 on the Zion course I had an epiphany:

“Shit, I really just like to RUN.”

Yesterday we were playing on the trails with Catra Corbett, described by Chris McDougall in Born to Run as the “kaleidoscopically tattooed” woman who ran the 212-mile John Muir Trail (then turned around and ran back). It took her 12 days, 4 hours and 57 minutes, round trip.

As we started running our third or fourth incline together, Shacky asked her if she ever “trains”.

“Do you ever wake up in the morning and think, Oh shit, I have to run 35 miles today!“

Catra scoffed.

“Pfft, NO! I do this for fun! Maybe that’s why I’ve been able to do it for so long.”

Catra doesn’t get bored.

On Saturday we followed Catra out to Miwok 100K 60K and fed her fresh mango from the Muir Beach aid station. We spent the rest of the day cooking bacon in the RV and passing it out to runners, while cheering and rocking the cowbell. One woman walked up to us and said, “Thank you for doing this. Nobody else is doing this on the rest of the course.”

I smiled and thought about my friends who had gotten “bored” of ultras. For me, there is still a strong lure here.

After spending some time in Catra’s home and picking oranges from the tree in her backyard, we got into the RV and started driving toward Auburn. I thought back to the first time I ever heard about Catra, reading Born to Run on a park bench in Toronto, Canada. I dug through my bag for a highlighter, and highlighted Catra’s name.

I must remember her, I thought.

Later, I got on Google and looked her up. I found her Facebook page and sent her a friend request. In my mind, her world was so mesmerizing, so fabulous, and so different than my own.

I’m blown away to I realize that this has now become my world too. I’ve transitioned from highlighting the name of a running idol to prancing around with her like we’ve been lifelong friends, all thanks to this one humble form of movement. I am thrilled to think of how far running has brought me, and how closely it has aligned my everyday life with my wildest dreams and strongest passions.

Are You There Running? It’s Me, Vanessa. I’ll be here a while.

Photo by: Catra Corbett

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Check out my book: The Summit Seeker

This week I sat under the shade of one of the largest trees in the world, handed Shacky the camera, and didn’t take a single picture. I folded my legs over a slab of rock, and watched tourist after tourist line up, take a photo, and move on.

I took my time there. I took deep breaths, gazed upward, and wondered everything there was to wonder about that tree, the General Grant at King’s Canyon National Park.

The last few days have been a frenzy of travel, photography, and trail running. We have rushed from one National Park to the next, photographing the glorious sights, running through paradise, and sharing our experiences online. It has been rewarding, but intense, and I feared I had forgotten what it felt like to just sit under the shade of a giant tree.

For two days we had no wifi or cell service. Running through the forest, I caught myself thinking, “I can’t wait to post this on Facebook!” The term, “Photos, or it didn’t happen” came to mind, and I realized I have slowly come to really believe that. It scared me enough to not take a picture of General Grant.

The day after entering Sequoia National Park, we ran the Marble Falls trail. Near the end of the route, the trail became narrow and the ground was loose, causing my right foot to slip and tossing me straight over the mountain. It was like the ground gave out under me. One second I was running, and the next second I was eye-level with the dirt, and still slipping.

I threw my arms up, and Shacky caught my hand before I disappeared completely. He pulled me out with nothing more than a few scrapes on my ankle.

We took a couple of photos of my wounds and the Vanessa-sized hole I left in the bushes, but they didn’t look gruesome enough to post on social media. So I didn’t. This decision was followed by a strange sensation that my fall, if undocumented, didn’t really count.

Pictures, or it didn’t happen.

That evening we camped near a rushing river across from the trailhead. It was close to the road so the dog was allowed out, but late enough in the evening on a weekday that the space was abandoned. We let the dog and the cat outside, watching them sniff and play. I went inside to put some food out for the cat and that’s when I heard Shacky yelling.

“What’s going on??” I asked, as he rushed Ginger inside.

“IT’S A BEAR!”

“What??” I practically fell over myself trying to reach the camera. Thankfully, kitty smelled her food and had already dashed inside on her own accord.

Shacky later made fun of my photo instincts in a Facebook status update, only to find that most people agreed that a photo would have been preferable to rushing the animals inside.

Pictures, or it didn’t happen.

We never did get that photo. The bear disappeared down the stream as quickly as it had come, but for a few days I was proud of my quick-thinking photography instincts. Then I started really thinking about it, and now I wonder just how proud I should be…

The week was nearing its end at Sequoia National Park and I hadn’t updated my Dailymile account for days. “If I don’t do it by Sunday, it’s going to automatically post my weekly mileage and it won’t be right!” I thought to myself.

For Alec Zimmerman, a young woman from Washington, going off the grid had much more serious consequences. Alec was hitchhiking through South America, and found herself without Internet access for a total of six days.

When she finally did log into her email, she discovered her “disappearance” had become an international incident, and the FBI was searching for her. Except she was never lost. She was just off social media. For SIX days. Beth Whitman tells the full story on Wanderlust and Lipstick.

As Whitman writes:

“Without the pressure of having to check email, update your status on Facebook or tweet a photo about your latest meal, you’re FREE! Free to actually live in the moment and enjoy the experience rather than worrying about how to capture it.

I know there’s a camp of travelers that stays connected – tweeting about their travels and posting to Facebook regularly while on the road. And, look, I’m guilty, too, of posting my travel photos and food pics. But I’m saying that there IS value in spreading your wings without succumbing to the addiction of constantly being online.”

I nod solemnly at Whitman’s words, yet I secretly wonder if I really know what that type of freedom feels like. Back in Sequoia, when we heard of free wifi a couple of miles up the road, we immediately drove there instead of spending the night at the next trailhead like we had planned. We update our statuses, posted some photos, and felt better.

Pictures, or it didn’t happen.

Ever since hitting the road for full-time travel in the RV, social media has taken a new role in my life. No longer available to me 24/7, I am online less, but feel more of a responsibility to share.

I don’t mean responsibility in a bad way, because I am passionate and excited to take photos, write about our adventures, and share our experiences, but I also know that people have come to expect that. I know people are waiting for the next album, the next blog post, the next status update. And I am so eager to please that I can forget to keep some moments to myself, quietly tucked away in my memory as intimate experiences.

Social media is not bad. It is a tool for sharing. Just like blogs, or photography, or newspapers. It is neither good nor bad—it can go either way. It can be used to inspire, connect with our communities, or showcase beautiful trails. It can also be used to waste time, rob us of the present moment, or distract us from our beautiful surroundings.

Yesterday I posted on Facebook looking for suggestions on where to run in Yosemite National Park. Without minutes, I had a new Facebook friend: Matt Holly, a Yosemite park ranger. The next day, we were shaking hands and he was handing us maps to his favorite local trails “where most people don’t go”. We later picked him up from work, drove him home, and will be spending the night camped out in front of his house, sharing our beers.

These connections are invaluable to us as nomads. When every day we are faced with new and unknown places, social media serves as our only comforting link to the familiar, connecting us electronically to valuable tips, trail suggestions, and locals eager to show us some hospitality.

Looking back on my Facebook photos, I can smile and think, “Wow. I was really there.” But every so often, I also need to pause and think, “Wow. I am really HERE.”

I need to look up at General Grant and have my first thought NOT be about taking another picture. I need to sit under its shade, take a deep breath, and know this really happened.

This post is part of the TrailRunner Blog Symposium. 

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****

Check out my book: The Summit Seeker

I spent all week looking up and took a variety of photos, but none of them compared to what I saw in Lehman Caves at Great Basin National Park. Happy National Park Week!

Ab Lehman discovered these caves in the 1800s and is responsible for introducing them to the public. They became protected as a National Monument in 1922.

Here is my submission:

As soon as I entered these caves, my heart started racing with excitement. I have never seen anything like this. I spend so much of my time seeking higher ground on the mountains, that I was blown away by the exquisite beauty that exists underground.

At the end of the tour, our guide had us place our palms on the walls of the cave while she simulated what an earthquake would feel like down here. It was like experiencing the pulse of the earth surge through your body and shake your very core. You feel completely helpless and at the mercy of the elements.

Back when Lehman still controlled these caves, adventurers would pay $1 (depending on the conversion calculator you use, this equates to anywhere from $30 to $100 today) for the privilege of entering. They were given one candle, and the assurance that if they didn’t emerge in 24 hours, a search party would be sent in to look for them.

There was no tunnel back then—people would rappel down and spend a lot of time dragging themselves through tight spaces and crawling on their hands and knees. If their candle went out, they were left in complete and inexplicable darkness. Today, the cave tour is easy to navigate and there is a wheelchair accessible option.

Here are the rest of photos we took in Lehman Caves:

Great Basin National Park in Nevada is the fourth least visited park in the country (the other least visited parks are in Alaska), but well worth the visit. The mountains are spectacular, and you are so secluded that it feels like you own the entire park.

Here are the rest of the photos we took at Great Basin:

Now go play in a National Park!

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Badwater’s youngest finisher and recent Barkley camp Nickademus Hollon once said: “Miserable is memorable.”

His quote became a mantra for Shacky and me as we neared mile 50 on the Zion 100 course last Friday, but it wasn’t until a couple of days later that I realized just how memorable this race had actually been, how much I had learned, and what a rich experience I had come to know at Zion.

Shacky and I didn’t finish the race. We both dropped at mile 52, though I accused him of having sympathy pains. He argued that he had complained about his knee long before I had, so maybe mine were the sympathy pains?

Either way, I came into the mile 52 aid station limping and leaning on a stick for support. I had tweaked my knee on some slick rock back at mile 30, and the pain kept getting worse until it seemed unbearable at mile 50.

Judging from my recovery after the race, I have no doubt that I would have seriously injured my knee had I chosen to continue. The limping was causing my good knee to slowly give out as I overcompensated.

For the first time in my life, I learned what “bad” pain felt like—the kind of injury that it would take weeks or months to recover from. I wasn’t willing to put in that kind of recovery time. We were headed to Sequoia National Park, Yellowstone, and the Redwoods after Zion. I had to be healthy enough to run among those trees.

The pain I felt in my knee after mile 30 confused me. The course led us down a very runnable, downhill dirt road. I kept trying to break into a run, only to be forced to walk after about five steps due to pain. When I walked, I felt no pain. Finally, I resorted to a speed walk and figured I would just power hike the rest of the way.

At around mile 40, even the hiking started to hurt, and the downhills started to kill. The pain only stopped when I stopped moving.

I wondered if I was just being a wuss, and decided to try an all-out sprinting pace to see what that did. I felt a sharp pain shot up through my knee that made my leg buckle under me. I hopped on my good leg to avoid falling.

People who passed me changed their comments from “Great job!” to “Way to tough it out…”

And at the bottom of Grafton Mesa, the third climb of the race, I sat down on a rock and cried. Why did it hurt this bad? I had never hurt this bad before.

Determined to get to my pacer who was waiting at mile 52, I told myself to pull it together and started climbing Grafton Mesa. On fresh legs, this climb is mostly runnable. Instead, I was inching my way along, limping and grabbing on to rocks to keep the weight off my bad leg. It was pretty miserable, and Shacky gently suggested that I consider dropping at the next aid station—a thought that had already occurred to me.

The idea of dropping felt strange. Other than my knee, I felt fabulous. My other leg felt strong, my nutrition was perfect, and mentally I was ready for many more hours on the trail. I was also, despite the pain, genuinely enjoying the day. The weather was perfect, the course was fabulous, and the race was so well marked.

Inching my way to the aid station, I wondered how dropping would make me feel. I tried to push myself to continue by appealing to my ego. I tried to tell myself that everyone was watching and that I would fail myself and fail my pacers… but I just couldn’t believe that.

I felt—whether I finished or not—like an awesome runner. I had run 100s before, and I would run many more after this. Deep down, I felt strong even though I was limping.

I thought of the Boston batons that the race director had sent out on the course. There was a gold and a blue baton being passed on from runner to runner throughout the course. The batons had the names of the Boston victims, those who would never run again, and would be sent to the families of the victims after they had been carried through the Zion 100.

I tried to motivate myself by thinking about how the Boston victims couldn’t run, so I should run for them. But instead it occurred to me that the greater honor would be to make a decision that would allow me to run again in a couple of days—and for the rest of my life—instead of pushing myself into an injury that would take months to recover from, and then re-occur at every race in the future. How would hurting myself honor anyone?

I thought about how funny perspective is. If this had been a 50 miler, I would be finishing victoriously. But because it’s a 100 miler, I would end the day in failure. And yet the distance is the same. I just ran 50 miles. 50 MILES! Should I really be ashamed?

I felt a distinct shift in my perception of the race. In previous races, I would think of it as: ME vs the TRAIL. But in Zion, the trails feel like my home. We had been here for three weeks, running all these same trails and doing all these same climbs. I knew I could summit and I knew the course would still be there tomorrow. The views were spectacular but familiar, and I just couldn’t see this event as a do-or-die.

When you wake up in the morning, do you race to see how fast you can make coffee? How long you can take to prepare dinner? Of course not—because those are your daily activities. They are your routine. That’s what the trails have become for me. They are my routine and my home. They are there when I fall asleep and there when I wake up. If I can’t run 100 miles today, maybe I can run 50 miles today. Maybe I can run 100 miles tomorrow.

Somewhere along the line, I have managed to detach my ego from my running, looking instead to the journey ahead and knowing that there are so many more trails to run, and an endless amount of miles to cover. I want to run today so I can run tomorrow.

I knew that by dropping at mile 52, I could rest for a couple of days and be back on my feet by the time we got to the next National Park. The other option was to push hard for this buckle, and be out of running for weeks. In my mind, I could imagine the towering trees of the West coast and I pictured them waiting for me. I could smell the moist dirt under my feet, and the soft leaves at my fingertips. It was a no-brainer. I must stay healthy so I could run more—not today, but tomorrow.

The next morning, we drove to the mile 83 aid station, also the home of George and Melissa Walsh. Their aid station theme was “Whiskey Town” complete with limitless drinks and jello shots. Shacky had whiskey for breakfast, and we shared some San Diego IPA.

The Walshes ran such a memorable aid station that the front runners were finishing the course, then driving back to Whiskey Town to party for the rest of the night. Amazingly, they only had one drop there.

Well into the next day, the festivities continued. Matt Gunn had organized a big screen showing of the Western States movie Unbreakable at the local movie theater, followed by a live Q&A with UltrAspire’s elite athletes. After that, it was free burgers and drinks at a local restaurant, and just in case you weren’t exhausted enough, there was also free river rafting.

The running community and volunteers were so warm and inviting that we ended up spending the next day at Tracy and Robin’s house. We talked about aquaponics, checked out their Air Stream trailer converted into a garden, saw some solar LED lights they had made out of Pabst beer cans, and played with their dog and cats.

Memorable is an understatement for what RD Matt Gunn put together this year at the Zion 100. I have no doubt the entries next year will soar. The course is brutally challenging yet still mostly runnable. There was a low-key, small town feel, the marking was flawless, the weather was perfect, and every single finisher’s buckle was handmade.

As we continue to travel the country, I will look back fondly on these memories and do my best to stay healthy enough to run another day in Zion.

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Check out my book: The Summit Seeker