Quest for WS

I came through mile 22 of my fourth 50k Ultramarathon ahead of pace, but I knew it wouldn't last very long. Not only was I hot and tired, the seemingly unimportant pain in my thigh which I chose to ignore was now forcing me to limp. Still, I wasn't going to let myself DNF. Sure, my thigh will probably hurt for a few days, but I was planning on taking a week off anyway. I gutted it out, mostly walking, and eventually finished 5th in 5:13. The next day, I wasn't walking very well. The day after: equally bad. One week went by and I was still limping. It was clear that whatever was going on in my thigh was getting better on a week-by-week basis. This was going to take a while. Running can sometimes be very painful. There are a number of nasty things that can happen during a multi-hour race, including nausea, vomiting, blisters, muscle cramps, dehydration, and pretty much any other complication of exerting oneself for hours on end. For me, however, not running has alw...

I've run for countless hours in the wilderness, seeing rattlesnakes, foxes, coyotes and a few ominous tracks, but I have never had to sleep there. We rolled into our makeshift campsite on my very first backpacking trip. The hike was extraordinary; We'd walked a short eight and a half miles from our car through Lassen National Park to our first makeshift campsite at Lower Twin Lake. After lounging around for a few hours and taking a quick swim, we began to setup our sleeping equipment. I've been camping many times before, but this wasn't my ordinary campsite. There was no fire pit, no nearby RV's, and absolutely no people with the exception of the five of us. My four friends set up their two, two-man tents in the small clearing about 30 feet from the start of the woods. Looking for the smoothest spot, I set up my newly purchased one-man tent a little ways from them, about 15 feet from the woods, which ended up being the first precursur to a long and stressful night...