5:30 in the morning. I’ve set three alarms to make sure I’m up in time, and they’re all going off right now. It’s cold in my house and I pull on bunches of fleece. A Bagel for breakfast, and Kim (my girlfriend) and I pile into my truck. It’s about an hour drive to the start of the race (near Lake Elsinore, CA). By the time we get there, the day is showing itself to be a bright sunny, but cool …

I’ve never thought of myself as a number chaser, but in it can be fun. In March my old friend Tom and I, after a day at Josh that totaled, oh, two climbs, decided we needed to have some sort of goal for the next day. I remembered hearing another group of climbers seeing how many “stars” the could collect in a day. I thought I’d heard 25. It was a weds, so that was promising, not too many crowds. We decided to go for thirty, but ended up with …

It’s 4:15 in the morning. Monday. It’s been a long weekend, and now it’s my day off. I should be sleeping in but I peel myself out of bed, stumble to the car. I stop for gas, and head to the shop. Damian is waiting, so we load a couple of sea kayaks onto my truck. Toss the gear in. 5:30 am. Most of the world is still asleep, and we roll out of town. Huh? Traffic? There’s a wreck on the interstate, and we sit. With traffic and …

It’s Saturday morning, last night I had a long drive to Paso Robles, California, met up with Kim and looked for a way to avoid paying $35 a night for camping. I had a fitful night of sleep, I was nervous, knowing that once again I was ill prepared for a race. When I decided to do it, I had ever intention of training, but somehow, between moving, a new job, travelling, and all the fabulous whitewater near my new home, training kept slipping away. I did some, a bit …

Febuary 3-12, 2001
It’s time for me to find a job. I quit Western November 3rd, and have had an enjoyable few months of climbing, relaxing, running, and looking for a job. A setback/disapoinment occured when I accepted a horrible, horrible job, that I quit just two weeks later. No paycheck was worth this job. But a bright glimmer of good came from my unexpected second round of unemployment. My freind Anne (in NYC, for you rec.climbers out there) sent me an email, she was sad that my job didn’t work …

There were certain things I expected to a problem during this marathon.  My IT band has been sore.  I haven’t run much the last couple weeks.   Etc., Etc.  There were other things I never expected to be problematic.
a) Rain  -> Death Valley gets 2″ a year
b) Snow -> It’s Death Valley, it’s H_O_T there.
c) Mud ->  See “a”
d) Altitude -> Death Valley is the lowest point in the western hemisphere, at 282
ft below sea level.
Turns out I was right about d.  Plenty of air. No problems breathing.  a-c turned out …