Tumbleweed

As a slight departure from my normal posts, this blog post will be more of a race report from my first 100 mile trail race which I just ran in Steamboat Springs, CO September 16-17. It was hands down one of the hardest things that I've ever done which I think is why many runners keep coming back to the 100 mile distance, i.e. ultra runners are gluttons for punishment and seem to believe that if it's not hard, it's not worth doing. Let's be honest - 100 miles is a ridiculously long distance to run so why would you do it? My hometown of Northampton, MA is roughly 100 miles from Boston, MA and I never dreamed of running that distance. New York City to Philadelphia, by the way, isn't even 100 miles (it's 95 miles). Yet I ran 102 miles yesterday through the Rocky Mountains which included more than 20,000 feet of elevation gain. The race is called Run Rabbit Run 100 and this was the 10th annual running of the event. See map and elevation profile below for more informa...

Greetings from Estes Park, gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. I've been a little slack the past couple weeks in blogging so I'm cramming the past three weeks into one post. We've spent very little time in our van as we've had a series of housesitting gigs in Fort Collins, Nederland and Estes Park. We've loved housesitting as we feel a bit more connected to the community as we're staying in someone's house and taking care of their pets. Housesitting also provides a window into other people's lives and we've learned so much from meeting new people and seeing how they live. Roy and Jane, who we housesat for outside of Nederland, built their own off-grid home way up in the mountains and live off the land by growing much of their own food and raising chickens. Someday we may build an off-grid home as well so it was inspirational to be in their house and get ideas for our future home.  Ginny had a birthday last month so we had a lot to celebrate. I b...