Dry Wash Runners

A Tale of Two Races The intention of this race was to serve as both training for the body as well as the mind. For the body the rough goal was to overachieve as measured by Ultrasignup’s ratings system. For that I would need to score in the mid 60% range. Alas the first half of the race succeeded by this measurement or would have had I dropped down to the 55k distance by quitting before the 2nd out-and-back of the race. For context, Colossal is first race of the Arizona Triple 50 which features two out-and-backs from the start finish line. The race first head south on the AZT, then back north to the start/finish. Looking North from Start: Strava View I set out south at a good pace South from the start despite not totally dialing in my shoe choice for the day. I am still recovering from two ankle injuries on each foot from rolling each several times in high stack unstable racing shoes. So I practiced “opposite action” and bought two large, wide heavy clauds known as the Altra 275 Olymp...

The FKT project, here known as "The Tukson 50" has been a life-time in the making. My earliest memories include drawing maps of our local ski mountain pixel by pixel. I grew up hiking in Montana's US Forest Service and Wilderness lands, which required a deep knowledge and skill in reading topography maps in order to find my dad's favorite fishing spots. My interest and love of maps has always been there, my skill in reading and imagining them, my super-power.  I dream in "topo". Cat Mountain Fast forward to today, and Strava has put that love of maps and topography on crack.  That heat map, is the best thing ever created! I have got dozens of variations of the Tucson 50, remembered in a half dozen published maps on Strava.  These days I'm using maps to motivate and explore. As some elite racers will recite, in reference to their Why, "I race to train." In other words, for many it's about the running, the views, and less about finishing comp...

 I am terrified of setting this goal.  it feels not unlike updating my glasses or getting back on the horse with dental work. really anything that gets to my sense of value as a person becomes difficult. It feels like sometimes it can take a whole year to set one appointment. I spend my whole career trying to unsuccessfully motivating others to move forward on their life goals and dreams. I help them identify what their value system is and align that with their actions. Now I find myself twenty, thirty, fourth pounds overweight. I still run often for mood regulation and personal enjoyment but I find myself stuck in this rut with nothing to dream about, no race to strive for which is typically what I have on the books to motivate me in other things. It all makes sense after all - I'm a father of a two, almost 3-year-old and a 7-year-old and we've moved a couple times in the last few years. the last move was tough and I medicated it with bags of candy in the evening after the ki...

  Not too long ago I lived in the Puget Sound Region.  My wife and I bought our first house in Bremerton, WA intending to make that our community for the foreseeable future.  After 13 of my own moves, some after I got married, I didn’t want to move again.  But the wintertime depression was crushing, killing, unsustainable.   No amount of running or pharmacology or use of natural supports was going to be enough to endure them, much less than thrive in them.   My wife, myself, and one toddler decided to leave liberal Western Washington to try our hand at living cheaply, in the sun, surrounded by a white Christian nationalist supermajority county in central Arizona.  More than one of our friends objected to the idea.  But the Seattle area was done with us so we fled for the sun anyway.   We visited Arizona frequently before and during the pandemic.  We researched it as a geographical solution to our vitamin D deficiencies....

masteson

 Please enjoy my picture of Dry Wash domination in Chino Valley AZ.  

I'm new to living in Arizona.  I've recently closed on purchasing a home.  My home in Chino Valley has beautiful sunsets and deck with extensive dry rot.  I'm dodging rusty nails that are backing out of the deck boards. I place my folding nylon chair down to enjoy the sunset. I still haven't started my new job since moving here a few weeks ago.  I've arranged my  new job to start the Monday after I'm to run this R2R2R thing.  My wife is on onboard for one final camping trip. ... But everything is new.  I've been ripping up carpet and finishing new floors.  My toddler, Kylan has been constantly adjusting to new surroundings.  We've driven across the country back and forth twice this summer.  We've lived with my aunt and uncle for a month while our new home was closing.  We've moved into a new place and just started meeting new friends.  Needless to say change is hard on my toddler.  He's doing great mostly...but this week h...

Understanding the reasons behind a Helgeson can sometimes include stories with a flare for the dramatic.  Andrew Tibert would call the Helgeson, "full of pathos."  This, my friends, is a friendly blog post so you the reader can catch up to what the fuck has happened to the Helge in the past 19 or so years pathos and all:  We, the Helgeson's plural, now we live on 2 acres smack dab in the middle of blood red Arizona Americana. Yeah like why the fuck would anyone go that?  Why would two liberal progressives move to rural MAGA country in Arizona?  Well we helped turn the state blue, so there's that.  But let me take you back a few years to provide some additional context.  Now that I reflect on it I suppose there are some general clues in the following collection of observed Helgeson behaviors: Following my original Spokane homestead way back in 2001, known as "The Ranch", I moved to Sandpoint, Idaho for a year. I played as a ski instructor, part time dem...

I sit in the dark. For me it is the darkest time of the year. It's dark outside. The days are short and what little daylight peaks over the horizon is shrouded in mist and cloud, under one of those atmospheric rivers. Add to that my depression. Some days the best I can manage is a day of Netflix. Most days a cocktail of Wellbutrin and Lexapro prop up my emotional gas tank enough to survive a day of work in the big city. I now add to that 3-5 capsules of Gabapentin to shroud my bone numbing fear.  It's working, but it's not enough. The boat ride home, usually quite the looker, is now pitch black this close to the Winter Solstice. I need a hundred. I need to run. I need a hundred so that I have more reasons to run. I sign up for a hundred mile race so that I will force myself to train. I get a coach. I look up coach Roache. He's full. He recommends coach Maxx who is currently using the Team RunRun Platform. So I train. I run farther and faster and fitter tha...

There were a lot of mountains I had to climb to complete this one. The biggest ones occurred before the race even started. Lately I've been dealing with a lot of mental health issues. During the work week I'll be sitting next to an upper level manager and start to feel lightheaded, disassociated, and sometimes I'll come down with symptoms that mimic influenza: I'll vomit, have diarrhea, get achy, and otherwise be unable to stay at work. Sometimes it's a day or two stuck at home, sometimes I overcome it and get on with my day. On the drive up to Fat Dog 70 race in British Columbia these symptoms were brought on by the perception that I was stuck in traffic with no way out. Soon after the border crossing I became increasingly anxious. Unfamiliar with the roads in the region I didn't know where I could go to feel safe. As these feelings set in I increasingly felt I'd need to go to the bathroom to unload a major bowel movement. I suddenly became sen...

I'm writing this more as a reminder to myself than anything else. I want to record that I'm proud of myself for what I accomplished in even starting this race. So without further ado here is the tale: Wy'East was to be my final distance push in training for this summer's 70 miler at FatDog in August. I did expect to be able to finish it was it profiled as an "easy" 50 mile course with buttery trail and a net elevation loss. And as expected the trail was beautiful and buttery, the climbs not too steep and the downhills all runnable and not too steep. What I didn't expect was to get the flu or something like it on the drive down to Hood River and be put in the position to ask my wife (who was already supporting both myself logistics wise and our toddler) to support me in my newfound illness. The last 60 miles from Vancouver, WA to Hood River OR felt like 200. This was the most unsatisfying of flu/food poisoning experiences I've ever had. Having evacuated...