Sarah Lavender Smith

Training to run an ultra sometimes feels as shaky as my commitment to do more gardening and eat less meat. I want to be able to run double or more the distance I do now, just as I want to replant our flower box and eat lower on the food chain, but then I wonder if I like the idea of doing those things more than actually doing them.

On Thursday, I emailed some friends to find out about their weekend long-run plans, hoping to tag along and recharge in the company of others since my motivation to do a long run was wavering. I knew I needed a friend or an inspiring course to help me go the distance and remind me why the weekend long run is so crucial to training and ultimately so satisfying. Thankfully, I got both and unexpectedly found myself on the cliff-hugging Miwok and Coastal trails in Marin. (more…)

A widely reported study released last September showed that 55 percent of Americans believe in angels. I took that as another sign of our country’s slide toward anti-intellectual lunacy. Even as a churchgoer, I believe in angels as allegory, not as actual messengers of the divine.  But I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking more about angels, as might be expected in this season of Advent, and have become more open minded about the possible existence of angels, loosely defined. It was the December 20 Rodeo Beach 50K more than the holiday season that sparked these thoughts. (more…)