Darkness had barely laid its full cloak upon the Quarry Road aid station (mile 90.7 of the Western States 100 course) and Hal Koerner was chatting, almost casually, with a runner that had just arrived. The guy looked lik...
Articles by Jeff Kozak
The suburbs of Cincinnati were a good place to grow up, I suppose. That is, unless you felt the deepest stirrings of your soul when surrounded by mountains and big sky country. Those soul-meets-landscape connections were...
Regardless of whether the December lotteries brought additional holiday cheer, or a wild-hair moment finally forced a hesitant Ultrasignup hand, a summer ultra can seem infinitely far away when viewed from the dark reces...
If you’re an endless summer runner at heart – one whom can’t help but secretly cringe at crisp fall color because you know it means a dark, cold and potentially wet blanket is about to suffocate your ambition – take sola...
It’s difficult to discern nature versus nurture with 16-year-old Sierra Burror. But when it comes to a passion for endurance activities and the outdoors, perhaps it’s irrelevant as she brings both sides of the behavioral...
The low point of the course turned out to be my low point as well. Downtown Ashland, at 1,950 feet, looked disturbingly close considering I was at mile 40ish and still had to get back over the summit shoulder of Mt. Ashl...
“Did you hear what happened?”I was the first one out to the rendezvous point after assisting with the freshly dismantled Brown’s Bar aid station (mile 90.7) at this year’s Western States, and was eagerly anticipating cat...
Not all adventure runs are Fastest Known Time (FKT) attempts, but all FKTs are surely adventure runs. Long before Peter Bakwin and Buzz Burrell’s FKT-concept-birthing adventure run on the John Muir Trail (JMT) in 2000 (l...
When Pikes Peak Marathon record-holder and high altitude running phenom, Matt Carpenter, roared across the finish line of the Leadville 100 in 2005 to set the course record of 15:42:59, he took 282 sips of a uniquely con...
Contrary to popular belief, climbing is significantly more about deliberate footwork, body position, maximizing leg power and economy of motion than it is about brute upper body strength. Much of what is often recommende...
