To all the subscribers who regularly read this blog: Thank you, happy new year, and please visit my new blog!

I launched a new site a few days ago to combine my passions for running and travel. It’s called The Runner’s Trip, and the tagline is Run Long, Travel Far, Discover More. The first post and about page describe its mission. In many ways it’s an outgrowth of this blog and our family travel blog, Away Together. I’m mothballing this blog and encouraging readers here to subscribe to the new one.

This “Running Commentary” blog served as a personal journal to chronicle coming back from injury and meeting new goals. I greatly appreciate all who followed it and shared their comments on my posts. The Runner’s Trip won’t be just about me; I’m cultivating contributors and aiming to share the stories of many. I hope you find it inspiring, motivating, informative, and entertaining.

Happy trails,

Sarah

I have never been in such a morose mood during a race as I was around Mile 26 in my first 50-miler, the October 9 Dick Collins Firetrails 50. The race starts at Lake Chabot in Castro Valley, traverses the glorious East Bay Regional Park District greenbelt, turns around at Tilden Park’s Lone Oak picnic area in North Berkeley, and heads back to the lake, with 7800 feet of elevation gain along the way.

See the middle part of this elevation profile, where the course plummets between the two peaks? That’s where my spirits plummeted too:

My body felt like a punching bag with every step on the descent to the turnaround point. My toes erupted with blisters that felt as big as cherry tomatoes. I kept looking at my watch and obsessing about how I was missing my goal — I wanted to reach the turnaround in as close to 4 hours as possible, and it was, what, 4:17? That’s not what I was hoping for. And I had to take a break at Lone Oak to spend a couple of minutes in the portapotty. I felt physically lousy and mentally wrecked, the polar opposite of the share-the-love-and-grasp-the-meaning-of-life runner’s high I felt during recent running events. (more…)

Tomorrow at 6:30 a.m., I’ll take off with nearly 300 other runners at the start of the Dick Collins Firetrails 50. Right now, I should be getting ready to run 50 miles tomorrow — which is exactly 20 percent farther than I have ever run before. I have errands to run, gear to gather, bills to pay, a story to edit, a chapter to finish, email to answer, laundry to fold, an iPod to update, two kids to pick up, one dog to walk, logistics to coordinate. But I have accomplished virtually none of that yet today because I AM FREAKING OUT. Not the head-spinning, hollering kind of behavior that those all-cap words might suggest, but the caving-inward, desperately quiet kind that freezes me to this chair and erases from my mind all — wait, where was I going with this? See, that’s what I mean: I can’t finish a thought, much less a task. (more…)

Anyone who’s ever run a trail race while listening to an MP3 player on shuffle mode probably knows the feeling of hoping that a Rocky-esque song infused with deep meaning will start to play in the final stretch toward a summit. The last thing you want to hear as you push to the top is a saccharine duet by Zac Ephron and Vanessa Hudgens. My preteen daughter’s pop tunes tend to wind up in my music library, so that experience — the audio equivalent of having a nice walk ruined by stepping in dog poop — happens to me from time to time.

Thankfully, this is not about one of those times. (more…)

My legs feel as heavy as the stack of textbooks my daughter lugged home on her first day of 7th grade last week, and when it comes time to run, I want nothing more than to curl up with my novel and eat an entire bag of peanut-butter-filled pretzels.

September and the start of school should mark an end to the Dog Days of Summer — the months plagued by heat and a lack of productivity, or a period generally marked by stagnation and lethargy — but I have felt mired in the dog days of training. (I always thought they were called “dog days” because dogs lie around with tongues out panting, but in fact the name comes from the position of Sirius in the night sky during summer; Sirius, the brightest star, is known as “the dog star” because of its position in the Canis Major constellation. But I digress …)

I don’t know why I’m feeling sluggish and negative; I can’t blame the weather, which mostly has been mild, or my schedule, which has been manageable. If someone asks me how I’m running, I say “slowly” or “not enough.” I feel thick and heavy and nightly give into cravings for beer and cheese. My head buzzes with negative self-chatter about how I’m slacking off and not putting in the effort to do my best at the upcoming race.

And then, all of a sudden, a couple of things slapped me on the side of the head and knocked me out of the running doldrums. (more…)

Yosemite Valley, with El Capitan on the right, taken from the Four Mile Trail to Glacier Point.

Five full days with the kids at sleep-away camp. What were Morgan and I to do with ourselves? Run!

We settled on Yosemite because of its proximity, and because of the diversity and drama of its environment. We also decided we wanted to stay in one place and take day trips, rather than carrying our gear from point to point and camping, so that we could run without being weighed down and recover with a hot shower and cold beer at day’s end.

Yosemite National Park is so vast — 1,169 square miles — that the options for running and hiking seem as limitless as the view from the top of Glacier Point. Planning where to go in a limited number of days inevitably makes for tough trade-offs. We consulted lots of helpful resources, such as iRunFar’s Yosemite Guide and the park service website.

We wanted to go everywhere, from Tuolomne Meadows to Wawona, but given our training level and the park’s jagged elevation profile, we knew we should limit ourselves to “only” 15 – 20 miles per day. We also didn’t want to spend an hour or more driving or riding a shuttle bus on windy roads to trail heads. We therefore decided to stay in Yosemite Valley at Curry Village and focus on the valley’s renowned trails and summits (Half Dome, El Capitan and Glacier Point), saving destinations like Lyell Canyon, Clouds Rest and Buena Vista Peak for another trip.

(Note: for a review of Curry Village lodging and tips on what to bring, please see our travel blog post.) (more…)

This post is only a recap of the last two weeks’ training, which is part of chronicling an 18-week training cycle. Sorry, there’s nothing worth reading here — it’s just a rundown of nerdy, obsessive details that only a runner would care about — but stay tuned: I am working on a longer post about last week’s trip to Yosemite, which will have practical advice about where to run in that glorious national park. (more…)

Coming through the first aid station at the Skyline 50K, I was all smiles because Morgan (who took these photos) and Kyle were there.

Three weekends, three trail races — a marathon, 30K and then 50K. I’ve never entered so many events with such high cumulative mileage in such a short time.

First it was the hilly Headlands “Marathon” (more like 27+ miles due to a long course and me veering off course; finished 2nd female in 4:35. See last week’s post). Then two weeks ago, it was the Sequoia 30K (1st female, 5th overall in 2:54). And finally, yesterday’s Skyline 50K (2nd female, 19th overall in 4:46).

I used to enter races with careful consideration and focus my training on them. Now, I’m doing the opposite and exploring the benefits of racing to train; that is, of having fast-paced but not very goal-oriented long runs (the races) part of a longer training plan. (more…)

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…)

Seeing Stinson from the Dipsea on our anniversary trail run.

My husband and I celebrated our 20-year wedding anniversary with our idea of a dream date: We ditched our two kids with relatives and ran the Dipsea Trail from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach and back. Along the 14 miles of rutted trail and steep stairways that climb out of redwoods to reveal the San Francisco Bay, I wondered how I’ve been married and running for so long when I generally struggle with commitment and battle boredom. I drop in and out of the workforce and start way more books than I ever finish. Half-baked projects litter my desk, and unaccountable gaps wreck my resume.

And yet here I am with Morgan, the high school boyfriend I married at 21, and here I am training for a 50-mile trail race after 15 years of running and finishing some 30 marathons. I can tell myself, I must not be a total flake or failure, because I have a good marriage and I’m a good runner.

Surely there’s a connection between my marriage and running, but what is it? (more…)