Articles by Sarah Lavender Smith
Our sport, like most, has a burgeoning class of celebrities and influencers. But the best big names and legends in ultrarunning are different than the notable names in more mainstream sports. The most inspiring—who keep...
Twenty years ago, I wrote my first story for this magazine and ran my first trail race. People sometimes wonder how I and others got into this sport, and how it has changed. Let me rewind to the late 1990s and early 200...
On a trip to Boulder, I didn’t expect to run into anyone I knew on my morning run. But when I transitioned to hiking up the steep rock steps of the Mount Sanitas Trail, I recognized the dyed-blue hair of the guy who pass...
It’s summer in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado, and I’m running one of the gentler trails in the region, the old Groundhog Stock Trail where cowboys used to herd cattle and sheep to load onto rail cars. T...
We tend to think of “off season” as a winter break in training before gearing up for a new training block when the hours of daylight lengthen and summer ultras beckon. I’d like to suggest thinking of the off season anoth...
I started running trails and graduated to ultras in the mid-2000s before Facebook, Strava, iRunFar, Instagram, Ultrasignup and Born to Run. I had a habit of leaving a note in the kitchen describing my route for...
Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, the end of the calendar year brings colder temps, shorter days, rain and perhaps snow. Between Thanksgiving and January, I tend to run less and sleep and eat more, as if trans...
I live at 9,000 feet on a mesa surrounded by mountains that rise sharply to 13,000-foot peaks. Sometimes I get introduced as “the runner,” which makes the person I’m meeting look at me with a mix of admiration and ske...
Like many runners, my life’s timeline cleaves distinctly into two periods: before I became a runner and after. I can’t say this about any other profession or hobby I’ve taken up over the decades. Only parenting – beco...
Every summer, countless trail runners make a pilgrimage to the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado to experience mountain running. Most nurture a desire to run parts of the Hardrock 100 course, which forms a gian...
After my first long run of the new year, I could barely walk downstairs due to quad and knee soreness. I had only run 21 miles, but it was the first time I had run longer than three hours in two months. I had told m...
There came a day in early 2020 when I wondered if, perhaps, I had taken this winter running thing too far. My eyelashes froze into icy triangles, and my lips numbed as they touched the frigid crust of fabric wrapped...
While running the 40-mile Telluride Mountain Run in late August—an extremely tough high-altitude ultra that circumnavigates the town and crosses four mountain passes—I felt a bit glum that I didn’t recognize any of th...
L-R: Billy Yang, Naomi Lee, runner Soon-Chul Choi, Jenny Perez Alvarez and Sarah at the Cocodona 250. Naomi Lee We reached the aid station after midnight and a rented deluxe SUV had been prep...
High on my closet shelf sits a couple of gear bags along with some assorted accessories. As I climb a stepping stool to access and organize this ultra gear shelf in advance of a 100-mile race, I ponder what an anthrop...
As I worked with a client to develop a training block for the first four months of this year, she considered a 50k in March and said, “I’m just going to run it for fun.” I hear that phrase all the time, and I underst...
Ultrarunners often talk with excitement about the races they plan to train for in 2021. Western States, Hardrock, UTMB and numerous ultras hold an almost sacred place in our minds, representing hope and faith in a bri...
Almost everyone I know has had a rough year, even cataclysmic for some. Friends were furloughed from their jobs, and many have had to manage work with schooling their kids at home. Some had to evacuate during fast-moving...