Articles by Errol Jones

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, in a land on the left coast of the continent, there existed people considered by some to be wacky, but certainly different. Among them lived a man who decided that he’d race alongside horses acro...

The Ties That Bind

It usually begins as a sense of amazement and wonder. There are people wandering around in nature, half-clothed and on foot, covering hundreds of miles and paying good money for the opportunity. For the person who gave y...

Who’s Your Daddy?

So, you feel your game plan is set and you think you’re in control? You think you know which way is up? Sign up and toe the starting line of a trail 100-miler, and we’ll see who your daddy is. Full-blown summer is here,...

The Punch of Patience

Mike Tyson once stated, “Everybody has a plan until they get hit.” The question becomes what’s our response when and if it happens to you, because the likelihood of getting hit in a fight is about 99.9%. In ultrarunning,...

Everybody’s Got a Tale to Tell

Whether you’re a veteran of 30 years and a hundred 100-milers or a newbie of 30 months and 10 events, everyone has stories to tell of trials and tribulations, joy and self-realization experienced while on the trails. The...

Adversity in Perspective

There are few real adversities to contend with when running trails. Running the trails and racing with others presents challenges and setbacks, but it’s what we do for fun. But life outside of running can be fraught with...

Three Miles an Hour Is All I Ask

When you do what we do, it sounds so easy. “I just need to cover a little more than three miles an hour.” Three miles an hour and just a little more, how hard can that be? It sounds so simplistic, so easy. Until you’re t...

Exit Stage Left

It’s early in the year and as they say, “Hope springs eternal.” But when formulating plans for what’s to come it’s also important to start considering what your future exit strategy might be. While being vibrant and o...

It Goes with the Territory

If you pound the dirt for long enough three things will probably happen. You will probably get off course and lost a time or two; you will run out of steam at one time or another (aka, a massive race-ending bonk); and th...

Ego: A Double-Edged Weapon

What I attempt to accomplish when I write upon these pages is to inform, enlighten and/or amuse and entertain. I’ve not crossed the finish line in a few races over the years, so DNF’s are not inconsistent with my makeup....

Civility at the Races

When I was growing up in Chicago some of my relatives would yammer in my ear about the way it used to be. How they had it back in their day: “I had to walk to school and back five miles in the snow, each way.” Their “sto...

Drop Bag Redux

Being the self-stated curmudgeon that I am, let me state this from the onset as strongly as possible: I love the sport of ultrarunning and marvel at the mindset and determination of trail runners/racers, and I get immeas...

In Your Time(s) of Need

In an April 2009 issue of the magazine Runners World, there was an article titled “Flight of the Bumble Bee” where I was referenced in the story and deemed the “Patron Saint of Pacers.” I’d given some advice to a woman w...

Remember to KISS

It’s not rocket science (no pun intended), it’s one of the most basic things we can do. Since we’ve come down from the trees we’ve been running, either away from or towards something. It’s what animals do. You put one fo...

Pearls of Wisdom

It’s time to start climbing out of the funk of winter and get back to the basics of training and preparing for those upcoming races. It’s time to get busy, getting busy. There’s work to be done. But remember, there wi...

Running vs Training

I knew from the onset that I shouldn’t be there, that I wasn’t truly trained or fit enough for the task at hand. But a combination of hubris and old age had me toeing the line. I had flown into what some of us jokingly r...

Navigating the Road to Ultras

When I first started running ultras, I was looking to extend the joy I received from running the roads, but without the crush of the urban environment. I saw a photo on the office wall of the director of a sports care ce...

Destination: Don’t Despair!

Seventeen years ago, I ran the Bear 100 for the first time. I’d dropped from the Wasatch Front 100 two weeks earlier without good reasoning. Three or four days later, my friends chided and goaded me for the egregious act...

The Better Half

This is not one of my usual rants, but rather an affirmation of a widely held concept. The fact is, the female of our species rules, though some of us men would like to believe that we have the upper hand, because we thi...

When It’s Not Your Day

In ultras anything can and does happen once the gun goes off, no matter how well things have gone up to that point. When the event officially starts, the race takes on a life of its own. Hopefully we’re dialed in and can...