UltraRunning October 2020
- Dauwalter Goes for 500 Miles by Jeffrey Stern
- Training for Unconventional Racing by Jason Koop
- Carbohydrates: What’s the Magic Number? by Matt Laye
- How to Explain Ultrarunning at Work by Cory Reese
- The Self-Supported Stage Race by Sarah Lavender Smith
- Fall Shoe Review by Donald Buraglio
Odds are that for the really long distances, like 100 miles, almost everyone will need to power-hike at some point during a race. To put it in context, each time I won the Leadville Trail 100, I typically power-hiked around 25 miles
Fall has arrived. In a typical year, back-to-school activities would be in full swing and fall races would fill the weekends. While much of that has changed, brisk morning runs and leaf-lined trails are a sign that summer is no longer around to keep us warm.
The Maah Daah Hey Trail consists of 144 miles of single track that weaves through the badlands of western North Dakota. Its name comes from the Mandan language and can be translated as “an area that has been or will be around for a long time,” “long lasting,” or simply, “grandfather.” However, one should not imagine a gentle grandfather, always ready with a Werther’s candy in the pocket of his flannel jacket.
Innovation can be an interesting process. Any creative-minded person can attest that you have to throw some ridiculous ideas into the world before you develop one that lands precisely where you’d like it. If it took working our way through the TenNine shoe to get here, the Clifton Edge certainly seems to have justified the creative process.
As the co-founder of Squirrel’s Nut Butter, Chris Thornley is in the business of chafing – well, preventing it, that is. But it may come as a surprise that SNB was not originally created to prevent the dreaded skin burn.
One of the cool things about racing versus a long adventure run is that you don’t have to carry all of your gear and calories with you. Aid stations offer general food and hydration needs, but if you have specific requests, using drop bags or having a crew with a dedicated crew bag can help, if your race allows them.
Chip Howard felt his adrenaline pumping as he began buckling himself into the thrill ride Superman, alongside his family at Six Flags New England, but he had a problem. The buckle was not big enough. An attendant approached him and explained he would have to get off the ride.
We’ve spent the summer testing four high-performance trekking pole options in mountain running environments and big vert days on our home trails: LEKI MCT 12 Vario, Ultimate Direction FK Ultra, Black Diamond Distance Carbon Z, and Black Diamond Distance Carbon.
“Anything can happen in the mountains,” I tell my 19-year-old son, Kyle, as I show him how to use the SOS button on my GPS tracking device. When I hand him a windbreaker, he looks at me as if I’m insane, because we’re living through a heat wave and the sky is cloudless.