Brown Mountain
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Euphoria, Brown Mountain, Bloody Knee

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,…
Cedro Peak singletrack
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More Songs About Cornbread and Jail

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…
Pacific Crest Trail
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Christmas in July

I ran 60 miles this week. 60 miles a week is not that much, not at least compared to two years ago, but it's a lot coming off of a bunch of nothing, which is more or less where my running has been these past few months. The year started out…
Me at Fish Hatchery
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Zane Grey 2017

Payson Arizona Thursday evening. The 28th annual Zane Grey 50 plus miler. I'm here for the third time. I first ran this race in 2015. It was one I'd been wanting to do for a while. A bunch of friends signed up, and one by one they all withdrew…
Downtown
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An Aspie Man’s Guide to Surviving Ladies Night

Ladies NightMagnolia Blvd. Diagonally across the intersection, a jazz band plays - at least, I think it's a jazz band, but I'm not really sure. I can see a few guys with assorted horns, and I can make out the sound of saxophone. I'm in Burbank…
Rosedeer Hotel, Wayne, Alberta
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Ashes to Ashes: 2016 in the Rearview Mirror

New Year's Eve at the Blackfoot Truckstop Diner Blackfoot Truckstop Diner, in Calgary, watching fireworks go off at the zoo across the river with a handful of folks all of whom had seen better days. New Year's Eve, Rhubarb Pie, having spent…
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Family

Election Day. 95 degrees in sunny LA. I came back from a short run, took a shower, and turned on the TV, looking forward to the end of this awful election, history being made with the our first woman President, who aside from being female was…
Salton Sea Stop
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Running with Aspergers, Pt 2

A few weeks before Black Canyon 100K, race director Jamil Coury let me know that they'd extended the cut-off to 18 hours, from 16. I was relieved by this. Sixteen hours had proven to be just out of reach on past attempts, and I liked knowing…
Angelyne, Hollywood Blvd 1995
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100 Miles of Nostalgia, and a Prayer.

Why?It's been a lazy August. I get up every morning at 5:30, make coffee, get into my running gear, think better of it, and sit in the living room with a book. The desire to run has left me for a while. My body needs a vacation. I'm not…
Wally Waldren Tree

A Week in June

AC100 is 6 weeks away.I found an email I wrote someone last year 2 weeks before the race. I was complaining that without stretches sitting on the side of my bed, I could not walk at all when I woke up, and that I was in pain all day long.I…
Above the clouds
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Quiet, Please

It's beautiful and sunny up here at 7,000 feet. Meanwhile, in the city, it's cold and dark.I can't see you. I can't hear you.Nature is working with me today, as it often does. It's created a barrier between you and me. It's symbolic only,…
Bear Canyon
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Wandering

Wednesday Morning.My people skills are not great. It doesn't take much for me to feel like I am under assault. People do extraordinary and often very short sighted things. People are always hustling to do less and get paid more and often…
My father, Pure Oil.
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Freight Train

Joseph Cordner. My father. When I was a little kid I had a thing about trains. Canada is a big place, and the Canadian Pacific went all across it. Not up, not down, just a shortest-distance-between-two-points-is-a-straight-line across.…
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Gimp Shoes

When I was a little kid, I had gimp shoes.I had managed, somehow, to tear my Achilles tendon, and so the Doctor prescribed them.They were specially built orthopedic wingtips. I already didn't fit in with the other kids in this rural western…
Sioux Teepee, by Karl Bordmer, 1833

Pre Race Jitters

I cannot find my Rocky Road long sleeved tech shirt, or my Outdoor Research cap. Not only is it my most comfortable long sleeved shirt and my most comfortable cap, but they are also my LUCKY shirt and cap. It's no coincidence that the last time…