Austrheim Smith runs to a win at Western States in 1982. Courtesy Bjorg Austrheim-Smith Bjorg Austrheim-Smith is 80 years old. Her time as an ultrarunner reaches far enough back into th...
Articles by John Trent
When you consider where Tim Tollefson was at the start of 2022 and where he is today, things look a little different. He would be the first to tell you that the past year hasn’t been without its challeng...
Street signs at Michigan Bluff and Gorman Ranch Road survived but the wooden post that held them was burned by the Mosquito Fire. John Trent Earlier this year, the sun had set but the sky was still...
Author John Trent traverses the Alexander Ridge section of Wasatch. Lauren Watson I first ran Wasatch in 2017 and didn’t finish, calling it quits at the Pot Hollow aid stat...
Far too often, we look at champions as if they are made from a sinewy type of steel. When they win, it is because they are far different than any of us – more talented, mentally tougher and physically stronger, filled...
Chuck Eidenschink answered the knock at the door of his Portland home while he was putting on a pair of overalls. It was January 2021 and Scott LaPlante was in the middle of planning out his summer as he was going to a...
Nick Bassett has reached a point in life where practically every answer to any question he’s asked usually turns into a story. You can’t blame him for that. When you’re 77 years old and completed nearly 200 ultrama...
Small towns throughout the country usually have a heart and soul center that runs right through the 50-yard line of their high school football stadiums. Every Friday night during the fall, the gathering at the loc...
“My journey to run this race began as a young kid. I always saw runners participating in these races and I always saw how miserable they looked. However, the looks on their faces when they finish these races have draw...
Looking back now, Rachel Spaulding realizes that over the past few years, there have been brief conversational moments, chance occurrences during races and the sheer centrifugal force of a pandemic—all of which have al...
We had made a pact, my youngest daughter and I, not long after Katie finished the Wasatch Front 100-Mile Endurance Run in September 2019. Watching the finishers of that year’s Grand Slam of Ultrarunning honored durin...
Beth Pascall crossed the finish line of the 2021 Western States Endurance Run in 17:10:42, placing first woman and seventh overall. Her time was the second-fastest women’s finish in Western States history. Le...
Emily Hawgood crosses the finish line of the Canyons 100K holding the flag of Zimbabwe, her native country. Scott Rokis Emily Hawgood has felt an intimate connection with a race, a trail and the racin...
From one end of the pandemic to the other, Anita Ortiz has had a lot of highs and lows as a runner. On February 13, 2021, she was released by her doctor who gave her the OK to begin running again. This good news se...
Cody Lind has followed in the footsteps of his grandfather Dr. Robert Lind and his father, Paul Lind, for almost his entire life. When Cody was boy, he would join his grandfather in the family’s camper parked at th...
For Kyla Maher, the process of discovering her future has been about finding out who she is and something more – about how she can help others find a stronger sense of who they are and the community they wish to belon...
“Do you ever still hear them?” I knew exactly what he meant. Yes, all I needed to do was close my eyes. For the past 25 years, they’d been a reminder that Joe Braninburg, in the midst of his own finest athletic moment...
If you think hard enough, you can feel the footsteps and hear the voices of all the races you’ve ever run. They become like a thin veil between the ambition of youth and the perspective of age. The problem, of cours...
In late June and through the middle of July, the Tahoe Rim Trail’s 171-mile FKTs were battered by a bevy of runners that included Fran Zelenitz (women’s unsupported FKT on June 27), Helen Pelster (lowered Zelenitz’s unsu...
He had only been gone a few weeks. But when Amanda Espinoza-Martinez spoke of her late husband, Chris, it’s obvious his guiding spirit still remained.“He was so good at leading people,” Amanda says of Chris, who died on...