A compilation of racism, misogyny, intolerance, and hate publicly directed at writer Myriam Gurba by ultrarunners in California Introduction Last June, Myriam Gurba and I went down to Cleveland National Forest for an intended weekend of hiking, relaxing, and taking photos. The San Diego 100 ultramarathon was taking place, and as an ultrarunner from […]
Back in early June 2019, Myriam and I took a weekend to head down to Cleveland National Forest. We’d been there before, just a few months earlier. The town of Julian doesn’t look or feel at all like Southern California, and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is stunningly beautiful. I am an ultrarunner, or was; injury […]
Sitting in my car on Altadena Drive, having just finished a run. The door is open and my leg is hanging out while I check my phone. My leg is covered in dried blood. A guy pulls up and asks if I need help. He can see that these are just scratches, but it looks […]
Here we go again. I’d put myself on the waiting list for this always sold out race sometime back in the spring. It seemed unlikely that my name would ever come up. I was a few weeks out from running Stagecoach 100 when I got the invite to do Cuyamaca, two weeks later. I accepted, […]
Salida, Colorado I’d spent the week camping in near Monarch Pass, in the Sawatch range of Colorado, where only six weeks earlier I’d tried and failed at High Lonesome 100, dropping out angry, frightened, and miserable in the middle of a dark night. I’d seen photos of the areas I’d run through at night because […]
August 3, 2018, near Buena Vista, Colorado, in a field at the base of Mt. Princeton, 6am. This was the start of the second running of High Lonesome 100, up in the Sawatch Mountains of Colorado. It seemed the entire Southwest on fire. Smoke was thick through southern Utah and even thicker around Montrose Colorado […]
Extremely good news. “Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news” – Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche I was in Albuquerque in April to run Cedro Peak 50K on my birthday. Ken Gordon said “You’re running High Lonesome!” Ken is running it too. I needed a reminder, though. What is High Lonesome? Apparently I’d put myself on […]
Harvoni treatment, month 1 My history with drugs is a colorful one. The colors are mostly shades of dark. For a very brief time, forty years ago, I was an iv drug user. It all ended a long time ago, I stopped shooting dope not long after I started, and I stopped drinking and all […]
Newly sober, 1997 It was spring of 1997. I was just a few months sober, in a women’s clinic in Santa Monica, because in those days there weren’t that many places that you could get a free HIV test, and an HIV test seemed like an urgent piece of housecleaning. The nurse took whatever bodily […]
Albuquerque, New Mexico Apartment hunting in Albuquerque. The courtyard. Not so far from mountains. Just off San Pedro. Quiet at 8:37 am on a Saturday. Cars are a little beat up. Not bad. “Don’t use that tone of voice with me, young man.” – every boss & every grownup I’ve ever known. “Don’t use that […]
EconoLodge. “Fuck you!” “No, fuck you!” This is the sort of well thought out argument that takes place between two drunk women in the room next to us at the Econolodge in Fresno. A good night’s sleep was not in the cards. Andrea went to sleep agitated and woke up even more agitated. She wasn’t […]
Frustration, bad spills, and broken bones. I’d signed up for Mogollon Monster 100 almost on a dare to myself. My success at 100 mile races has been, well, not very successful, with a lot fewer finishes than I have starts. Things always fall apart in a 100 mile race, and I fall apart with them. […]
Silver Moccasin Run. For about 3 years I have been planning to do a run along the length of the Silver Moccasin Trail. This morning we got up at 3am and headed out to Vincent Gap. Andrea would drop me off, and meet me along the way as I ran along this trail for 50+ […]
In the counter-clockwise direction, KT is the next-to-last aid station before the finish. At mile 89, the runners have just come up Grants Swamp three miles earlier, a harrowing climb, and then descended via the Ice Lake Trail followed by an animal trail to the aid station, which is on a rocky stretch of jeep […]
Oh baby, baby – Oops I did it again. I’ve signed up for Mogollon Monster. I feel as though I haven’t been running well for the last year and a bit. I feel as though age has caught up to me. I feel as though my performances, from now on, will be increasingly embarrassing. So…what […]