Articles

Recent accomplishments by ultrarunners are re-setting the bar at levels never before imagined. Every week it seems there are more audacious headlines – the PCT record smashed by 6 days; …

I’ve always told our kids that our true character comes through in how you deal with life’s setbacks, rather than how you respond when things are going great. I, unfortunately, had the opportunity to “practice what I preach” in Leadville this past August. I learned in no uncertain terms that the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. On a beautiful sunny day in the Colorado Rockies the Leadville Trail 100 chewed me up and spit me out. Period.

So here I am, six thousand feet up on a French mountain beginning to hallucinate hard. The sun went down six hours ago while I was on a different mountain peak. That was the second sunset I had seen in this race and it was sixteen miles behind me, twenty kilometers behind me, six hours behind me, several thousand feet of climbing behind me –several thousand feet of climbing ahead and many miles/km to go.

Don’t know why I’m struggling with this one. I need to get a grip. Remind myself. It’s not like I’m putting the family cat down. And how would I know what that’s like anyway? We don’t even have a cat. I’m talking about a pair of shoes here. And wondering, when is it time to say goodbye?

By Geoff Roes It’s been two years since I last felt “normal” for any length of time. In August of 2012 I began to experience severe symptoms affecting nearly every …