Labor Day is more than a fun weekend, it is a date on the calendar with significant meaning around transition. End of summer. Back to school. Weather getting crisp and colder. Days getting shorter and nights getting long...

Dear Ann, I have loved ultrarunning as a runner, but I’d like to take on a race as a race director and give back more. I know you were RD of the iconic Firetrails 50 Miler later in your career and you did a superb job....

Strength Training Being stronger is not only going to help you run faster and/or longer, but will help you stay healthy as well. Strength training can take any number of forms. Focusing on improving your core stren...

With the influence of the Internet, and social media in particular, more and more folks are getting out to explore our trails. We’re presented daily with beautiful images on Instagram and Facebook, and inspired to trail...

One of the great things about the ultrarunning community is the variety of people and the ways they eat. Dary Piceu not only is the picture of accomplishment year after year in the sport’s toughest events, she is also th...

Gearing up for a longer ultra, such as a 100k or a 100-miler requires a dedicated training plan with particular focus on getting more miles and more time on feet. One way to accomplish this is with back-to-back long runs...

Going to races is one of my favorite ways to connect with the athletes I coach. If everything has gone well in preparation, there shouldn’t be much left for a coach to do at a race. I go to support athletes and sometimes...

One of the random facts about the East Coast is that many of the states are smaller so you can run across an entire state in one fell-swoop. That has an awesome sound of badassery to it, which can be the icing on adventu...

Most of us can’t escape the ultra-shuffle as we reach the later stages of races. As we fatigue our biomechanics change in many ways, including changes in stride length and frequency. In this article I will shy away from...

Ah, nothing like a restful week of travel with the family to a wonderful destination… right? While I hope your “vacation” is indeed a worry-free excursion, I must admit I often hear from ultrarunners (including yours...

It was the 1960s and my senior year in high school we got a new track coach. He called a meeting after school for anyone interested in track and field events. He had a pile of mimeographed papers and pulled out a set for...

Fall means different things in different parts of the country. In warm climates, it’s a slight lowering of the thermostat from “uncomfortably warm” to “comfortably cool.” In more extreme areas, it can bring increased rai...

Afghanistan is a country that exists for many only in the news and history books, a country that has faced centuries of war and conflict. I was 17 years old, in 2001 when the United States invaded Afghanistan. I remember...

I have a healthy enough respect for glaciers to know as a general rule that you don’t go running on them. Having spent a few summers on Mt. Rainier, I know that glaciers tend to mean crevasses, sometimes obvious ones and...

At mile 99 I kept glancing at my watch. I heard myself whimper, “Am I going to make it?” The sun was radiating fire so hot that I swear I could hear my skin sizzling. I was so tired that my eyes were begging for a moment...

Running a marathon takes crazy; running an ultramarathon takes a special kind of crazy. Few things in life require such commitment and sacrifice, and those are the easy days. There’s no way to finish an ultramarathon wit...

The sound of a helicopter circling over our property near Telluride, Colorado, filled my ears for several days straight. The sight of teams of volunteers dressed in hiking gear, fanning out in the aspen groves and bushwh...

“Chris, please tell me I have to finish,” I said to my friend and fellow racer in a somewhat concerned, yet half laughing voice as I laid on the ground in a sleeping bag at the Engineer Pass aid station. We were miles fr...

For threee days in June, more than 900 veteran and rookie skyrunners from as far away as Japan, Germany, Australia, Switzerland, South Africa and French Polynesia descended upon Squaw Valley, California, home of the 1960...

Endless gray stretched over the highway in front of us. The windshield wipers scraped away heavy drops. I looked out the passenger window without saying much. I registered for Last Runner Standing because I thought it...

The 26th annual running of the Bighorn Mountain Wild and Scenic Trail Runs and the 17thannual running of the Bighorn Trail 100 were held on June 15-16, 2018, in the Bighorn Mountains of northern Wyoming. In the same mann...

The forecast was for an on-and-off rain all day, not very promising for a bouldery course with 15,000 feet of ascent and even more descent. But dry weather and cool temps led to fast times in the sixth running of Manitou...

The Night Hawk is a loop course with three different distances: 10 mile, 20 mile, and 50k. Held in the peak of the northeast Kansas summer, all three distances step off at 8 p.m. in what is usually a futile effort to bea...

Hiking up 14,065 foot Mt. Bierstadt the day before running a 50k race is a questionable racing strategy. Doing so when coming from Kansas to race in Colorado might be more than questionable. Trying to sound convincing as...