John Muir Trail, Part 1 -- Gear List (with Shout-Outs to Skinfit, USANA, ProBar, John Mayer, and my BeardLoofah™)

If you have spent any time interacting with me over the last few months, then you probably know I'm hitting the John Muir Trail next week. This is how most of my conversations have played out recently:

"Would you like fries with that?"

"No thanks, but you know where I wish they had fries? The John Muir Trail. It's a 221 mile trail from Yosemite to Mt. Whitney. Yeah, I'm running it with a couple of friends and we're going to try to do it in 9 days which is nearly a marathon a day...we were going to try to do it in 7 days, but I had a bad day on Mt. San Jacinto, so we lengthened it...you probably already knew about that, because I wrote about it on my blog."

"So, would you like fruit or slaw?"

"I'll take the fruit, the slaw might get stuck in my beard...that I'm growing for the John Muir Trail, it also doubles as a loofah, which will come in useful on the trail, because I don't have room for any extra gear...my pack weight is currently under 12 pounds, so no sponges allowed."

"Your burger will be right up. Enjoy the John Mayer Trail. I never really liked that guy after what he did to Taylor Swift."

While preparing to cover the JMT, I have learned that the longer the run, the bigger the role gear plays. As the gear choices become more important, I have been trying to find that thin line of balance between weight and necessity. Whittling down a pack to under 12 pounds was difficult and I hope that I have found that balance, but to be honest, the only way to know if it will work is to try it out on the trail. I'm excited and scared about reality of being out on the trail and surviving (hopefully in some comfort) with the gear strapped on my back, dipping my bottle in cold lakes and rivers, and eating enough calories to keep me floating along.

If you're not into gear, and really, I wasn't either a few months ago, I'd move on. This probably isn't for you. This article is for the weight weenies.

Speaking of weenies, yesterday, I was on my hands and knees on my bathroom floor with gear splayed out all around me, hovering over a single tube of chap stick on the center of a kitchen scale and patiently waiting while the blue digital numbers oscillated between 9 and 10 grams before finally settling on 10 grams. As I knelt on the cold tile, hands shaking like a junkie setting up his works, I applied a liberal layer of the waxy stick to my unchapped lips. I'd done it, single digits...9 grams. My lips were now soft and supple, not that it matters; they haven't seen much action since allowing my John Muir trail-beard to have its way with my face.

What follows is a gear list from a relatively new fast packer. If you're here looking for expert advice, don't. I've done some 2-day runs with this gear, and I've tried it all out, but 9 days on the trail could provide completely different results. Hopefully I've successfully balanced the weight vs. need line, but I'm well aware that there may be a big 20 point font warning at the top of this page added by a future, older, and wiser version of myself shaking his head and mocking the current soft-lipped version of myself, asking “what were you thinking?”

I want to thank some of the companies that provided gear for this trip. Some sent free samples to try, and some I have paid for. Bottom line is I'm trusting my journey to the gear provided by these companies, and if they made the cut, it's because I have tried them, and they are the best that I have found.

Skinfit -- skullcap, running gloves, arm warmers, and wind jacket. This stuff is awesome, super light, hi-tech fabric and very comfortable and functional.

USANA -- I have been using these supplements for nearly 20 years and I completely trust everything that the scientists who founded this company put out. My favorite products from USANA that will be with me on the trail are the BiOmega fish oil (to help with inflammation), Procosa (for my joints), the whole food and high protein snack bars, and digestive enzymes to help me process all the high-calorie junk food that I'll be eating on the trail.

ProBar -- I'll be mixing the junk food up with this high quality stuff. Most of my lunches will consist of a ProBar meal bar, which is a great-tasting, organic, whole food meal bar with about 400 calories. I'm also taking the delicious ProBar Bolt organic fruit chews on the trail as snacks.

Fits Sock Company -- for a little piece of heaven, I’ll switch into these wool socks in the evening (along with my silk robe, slippers, and pipe).

Here's the whole gear list:

My sleeping set-up in the wild.

Food for one day.

As for food, I'm targeting 3,500 calories per day. To get to that number, I'm using a combination of high caloric density junk food and whole foods. For some reason, junk food is the most efficient way to get a lot of calories into the system without adding too much weight (to the pack, the belly on the other hand...). I'll start off the day with vanilla iced coffee powder and a couple of pop tarts. I'll snack throughout the day on a mixture of Fritos, jerky, trail mix, USANA protein snack bars, and a ProBar meal bar for lunch. Dinner will be a variety of freeze-dried meals from Expedition Foods. These dinners are healthy and packed with calories, and they are surprisingly good. We're re-supplying at 3 different points on the trail (Red's Meadow, Muir Trail Ranch, and Kearsarge Pass), so I won't be carrying more than about 2 pounds of food at any given time. Day 9 dinner will be at Whitney Portal store and will consist of multiple beverages from the Sierra Nevada brewery and a mediocre, but most delicious bacon double cheeseburger in existence, and I might even get a side of slaw.


Thanks for reading.

Kauai Vacation

I took the dog out last night to poo, and she didn't quite finish. Sometimes, without going into too much detail, there is a blockage. She eats grass, and I try to stop her because I don't think it's good for her, but then someone told me that dogs eat grass because there is something up with their stomach and grass helps aid the digestive process. Last night, I also had to aid the digestive process with a makeshift doggie bag glove on my hand. For some reason, my dog doesn't like a finger up her butt, so this is kind of a difficult task. She was patient, though, and avoided any eye contact with me as I very slowly and carefully pulled a cylindrical mixture of grass, small sticks, hair and dogshit out of her. It was satisfying to get it all out in one step, so I proudly showed it to my wife through the window, and announced triumphantly, "look what I just pulled out of Hazel's ass." Then I remembered how fun and beautiful last week's vacation on Kauai was. Here are some pictures:

Hanapepe Bridge (which I called Haveapeepee resulting in this photo)

Bring on the hurricane

I planned on running the Kalalau trail on the Na Pali coast. It's a trail I've wanted to run for a long time, and each time I go to Kauai, I get a little closer to actually running the damn thing. This time I had a permit ready to go, and I had recruited my brother-in-law, Cameron, to run it with me. We were all set, the weather looked great the week before, I'd been reading trip reports and watching videos of the trail and with each one, I was getting more excited to get out on the 22-mile trail. Unfortunately, Hurricane Flossie hit Kauai the day of the hike. It didn't even really hit Kauai, aside from some wind, clouds, and a short rainstorm in the morning, there really wasn't any evidence of a hurricane, but it was enough that the Hawaiian Parks department closed the trail as a safety precaution.

I searched for an alternate hike and found the Powerline trail which is a steep, muddy 10-mile trail through the jungle on the north side of Kauai. Two of my brothers-in-law joined me on the hike/run, and it was a lot of fun. All the online descriptions of the hike describe it as a dry hike, which I interpreted as the hike isn't very wet, but during the hike I realized that it probably meant that the hike should be done in dry weather. We only had one car and a limited amount of time to get back to the family at the beach for a day of cutthroat kids' beach olympics competition, so we did 10 miles total on the trail. The first half was a long, slippery climb to the top, and as is usually the case, the views from the top of the mountain were worth it. We turned at the top and ran most of the way back down. By the end of the run, I had slipped and fallen about 5 times, was covered in mud, and a little of the sting of not being able to do the Kalalau trail had been washed away by the mountains. I was proud of Ryan and Cameron for joining me in the tough conditions. My favorite part of the run, of almost any run, was sharing the calm that comes from being outside surrounded by the beauty of nature.

Powerline Trail

Photo credit: Ryan Kaltenbach

Photo credit: Ryan Kaltenbach

My wife and I were also able to jump into a local race in Poipu. She did the 10K and took second in her age group, and I did the 10 mile and took first in the 40-49 division, so it was a good race for both of us.

10 mile finish line

Thanks for reading.

Big Bear, Catalina, and Tahoe 50K

As we were running up to Gray's Peak in Big Bear, Jess was telling me about this comedian who was saying the best way to ruin a moment, is to acknowledge how awesome it is (here's the clip from Pete Holmes if you are interested). I had to keep that in mind for the past week, and I'm tempted to say that the entire week was McDonald's (which would make sense if you watched that clip).

The week started with the trip to Big Bear for an overnighter as training for the JMT, but really it was just another reason to get out to the mountains. We planned a route up to Gray's Peak, then connecting to Hanna Flat campground, then hitting the PCT where we would camp for the night before heading to the Cougar Crest trail, then looping back to town.

The run went great, a little hot, and a little shorter than we anticipated, but that just meant more quality time to sunbathe in camp. In the continuing saga of my water troubles, I set my pack on top of the bite-valve for my bladder, so when I picked up my suddenly much lighter pack, I realized that the liter of water was slowly soaking through the pine needles and into the dirt. Luckily, I had another bottle, and Jess shared some of his water, so no major problems.

That evening, I found a nice rock overlooking a deep valley filled with burnt trees and new growth and watched an amazing sunset.

PCT

My room with a view

Gray's Peak Trail

The day after I returned from Big Bear, I left for a camping trip with my son to Two Harbors on Catalina Island. It was a great overnight trip with a tent overlooking the Pacific, a couple great hikes, kayaking through the harbors, spotting wildlife, swimming in the ocean, s'mores and roasted hot dogs, and hours of searching for the perfect skipping rocks and throwing them side-armed, on the calm, glassy Pacific as the sun set over the hills behind us.

We returned on the ferry and I sat and watched over my dirt-covered, ocean-washed, nappy-headed son with this huge crooked-tooth smile that takes up half his face, as he leaned into the wind and the spray from the boat.

Prancercizing

When I got home that night, I packed my bags for Tahoe went to bed early to catch the next day's 6 AM flight to Reno. I met up with Beth, Chad, Treasure, Kara, Joy, James, Brian and Cameron at a humble cabin on the lake. Seriously, this place was beautiful. I judge how nice a place is by how hard it is to work the shower. I'll just say that this place was so nice that I couldn't figure out the shower until the second night, so I had to settle for a bath.

I signed up for the 50K with two main goals: run with my friends, and get some solid altitude training in. So, when the gun went off I quickly got sucked up into a pack and started racing. Looking over my shoulder, I couldn't see Cameron, Treasure or Chad, and after a couple miles, I stopped and waited at a beautiful meadow. I don't remember doing this in a race before, and under different circumstances, I don't think I ever would, but this sense of calm came over me and I knew I was making the right decision to hold back. The rest of the run was amazing, the course, the conversations with friends and other racers, the sweeping views of the lake...it was all just perfect. I was really proud of Treasure who had a really fast finish to take 8th, Brian who ran a perfectly-paced race on very little training and finished 7th in the 100 miler, Chad who pushed through some nutrition issues to finish the 50K, and Cameron who worked through some low points to finish strong in his first 50 miler. Beth, Joy, and Kara were amazing support to all of us, and it was just a great race experience. I don't generally like to do the same race twice, but I can say for certain that I'll be back in Tahoe.

Race morning

Finishing with Treasure

I only added this one because it is rare that I look this manly

Our humble cabin

The best part of the week, though, was waking up yesterday morning to long hugs and the sweet smell of my kids' morning breath. It's nice to be back in paradise.

2nd Annual San Elijo Hills Trail Marathon -- Race Report

Over the weekend I organized (and I use that term loosely) the 2nd Annual San Elijo Hills Trail Marathon. This is a run that a group of running friends and I dreamed up on one of our morning runs along the trails that surround our community. We linked up a bunch of local trails to make a 26 mile loop that is mostly trail with a couple miles of road.

There is no sign-up form for this run. I sent out an invitation to a few people, and the word spread and more and more people wanted to join. I warned everyone about the difficulty of the course (there is nearly 5,500 feet of gain in the 26 miles, including the warm-up hike to the start), the lack of aid, and the lack of a capable and responsible race director to complain to. I did promise a very difficult day on the trails, and I guess that appeals to a lot of the people that I know.

For me, the run was a two-day event focused on some very specific training for the John Muir Trail run in August. I ran and marked the first half of the course Friday morning with Nir and Melissa, and I marked the second half Friday evening with Cameron.

Finishing up on day one.

Proper nutrition is important

Saturday morning, I met with the around 30 people who started the run (22 planned on doing the whole thing), and we made the hike up to Double Peak for the 5:30 AM start. The weather, which had been hot the previous weeks, cooled off a little on Saturday and we had a warm, humid, and overcast day.

I didn't want people to rely on aid stations, because I think it's important for people to be self-sufficient for a run like this. However, we had some amazing people come and help support all the runners. Sanam, Joy, Scott, my mom, Ric, and Lynne really helped feed and hydrate the runners at the five aid stations on the course. The aid stations were stocked with fresh fruit (the organic oranges were awesome), rice balls, candy, boiled potatoes and chips.

Aid Station 2

One of the best parts of the day was running to the top of Paint Mountain and retrieving a quote from the notebook that my daughter put together for the run. She compiled about 30 motivational quotes in a notebook, and at the top of one of the more difficult climbs, runners ripped a quote out of the notebook and kept it with them for the rest of the day. Mine was a quote from Kathleen Harris and it read "Don't fear moving slowly forward, fear standing still." It was a perfect mantra for the day as I slowly, but steadily finished the run. The other highlight was finishing, having my daughter place the handmade medal/necklace around my neck and hanging out with friends and family at the finish on top of Double Peak.

Every finisher received a handmade necklace

My quote, sweat-stained and crumpled, as it should be.

I think we had about 20 people finish this year from the super-fast Ben Hian and Chris Sigel to a couple of people who made it their first marathon. Everyone finished with smiles, but the best finishing moment had to be Christine, who, as she crossed the make-shift paper towel finish line, yelled out "fooq you, Dax," in her French accent.

Post-run pizza and beers.

This run is one of my favorite runs I do every year, and I am so lucky to be surrounded with such a great group of people who help make this run happen. I already have plans to make it harder next year along with a new tag-line. Want to know what it is? You'll have to come suffer with us.

There is a little more info on the course in last year's report. Here's an awesome video that Treasure put together from last year's race. I found the pre-race course description hilarious: