Year of the Series?

At the end of each year, my dad, my sister, and I send each other lists of the books we’ve read that year, with a little blurb about each book. (Sanguinity makes a list too sometimes, but not every year.) I eschew the letter grades my dad and sister assign to their books; I don’t like my relationship to the books to be one of picking and choosing, or judging. But I do sort my list into categories and mark my favorites, which I put in my LibraryThing collection to admire and remember along with the favorites of other years. (If you really want to see my whole list, you can view it here in Google Docs.)

What strikes me this year is how many of the books I read were part of a series. Two out of three of my adult-fiction favorites: Lisa Lutz’s The Spellman Files and its sequels, and Kage Baker’s Company series. (The other favorite was Molly Gloss’ Wild Life.) In children’s and YA fiction, I loved The Mysterious Benedict Society and its sequel (I’m saving the third book), finished off the Hunger Games and Life As We Knew It trilogies, and read a whole bunch of other books-with-companions:

Joan Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Catherine Clark’s Wurst Case Scenario
Grace Dent’s Posh and Prejudice
Dianna Wynne Jones’ Conrad’s Fate
Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy’s Wedding
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice in Charge
Patrick Ness’ The Knife of Never Letting Go
Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu’s The Shadow Speaker
Ellen Emerson White’s The Road Home

Srsly, like half my list of books. At the video store I get much more excited about long-arc TV shows than about standalone movies, but I hadn’t realized how much of a series reader I am. It’s not just the additive value of more books by authors I like: there’s a particular pleasure in tracking everything from book to book, the atmospheric changes, the writing quality, the character constellations. Almost a gossipy element. I hope someday I find a series to write. It must be wonderful to have such a rich field to play in again and again, mixing up the familiar and new aspects. Like seeing a place through many seasons and years.

My very favorite kidlit books of the year, however, were two standalones, and I must, must tell you about them in the hopes of tipping someone toward reading them. Christine Fletcher’s Ten Cents a Dance is that rarest of historical fiction, the kind that feels real and not even slightly like I’m being instructed and educated in history. And Frances Hardinge’s The Lost Conspiracy was my long summer book that took me away to an island with multi-cultural details and twisty plotlines and made me not miss Harry Potter one bit.

Thank God there are books to read, every year.

The Shopping News

Yesterday was blech, and there’s not much I mind consigning to the abyss of forgetfulness. But I did indulge in something I very rarely take part in: retail therapy.

These are Step One in my long-planned New Look. (My Old Look involves past-their-prime running shoes.) I put them on in the kitchen yesterday when Sanguinity and I were cooking. “I feel like Harriet the Spy!” I said.

Step Two requires a trip to Sock Dreams. Let me know if you want to go too!

Especially after a weekend of commercial television at the in-laws’, I do see how shopping can keep the feeling of disappearing at bay, and instill a sense of triumph and participation instead. Not as good as making stuff, but easier.

Five from 24 in Fifteen

This morning I kept Sanguinity company on the early bus to downtown. She’s going to Seattle on Amtrak today. After we parted I walked to campus, and decided to try writing “5/24/15”: think about a five-minute period within the last 24 hours and take 15 minutes to write it down. Even if you end up ranging beyond the five minutes, there’s freedom from having to catch everyone up from the last time you wrote, or write only about important things.

(I can’t remember for sure where 5/24/15 comes from, but it may be Heather Sellers’ Page After Page. Which, now that I look up the link and read excerpts, has excellent advice about love, writing, and time.)

Anyway, here’s what I got.

As Thanksgiving weekend unspooled, I started thinking more and more frequently, “I have nothing on the calendar for Sunday. I can have all day just to write and putter!” It was like having money in the bank.

Then it was Sunday morning and I was on the couch with the coffee and the internet, and an email came in from Refgoddess wanting to borrow a Messiah score, and did Sanguinity and I want to take a walk with her and her dog when we made the hand-off?

Why, yes, and pretty soon we were chez Refgoddess while D wandered around getting ready for church, going to put a belt on only to find he was already wearing one. And then the rest of us were out the gate with Carbon and realizing we didn’t have to trace the same route we take on our commuting walks! We made a rambly loop around the neighborhood, and just as we were solving (retrospectively) the Thanksgiving Napkin Etiquette Disaster, Sang’s phone rang and it was Bookherd calling her back to arrange meeting up at a movie, and Sang asked me if she should bring Bookherd home for a visit afterward so I could see her too, and

Reader, I panicked. Standing in Refgoddess’ driveway where she has made a labyrinth in gravel. Days do not stay empty! A piece is waiting to be written and it’s due at the IPRC class on the 6th and then there is laundry. Sunday night blues started on Saturday night, this week.

There was still plenty of time, not that I used it well when I was on my own. (I resent using it well! I just want it to be there!) Bookherd came over for leftovers while I finished dealing with the turkey stock and carcass that Sang and Fourgates had got going Thanksgiving night. When the dog gave me his Meaningful Look, I glanced at the clock to see if it was eight o’clock (his suppertime) yet, and it was only six! I was so happy. You wish, little boy, I told the dog.

My relationship with time is really kind of fucked up. (I don’t want a relationship! I just want it to be there!) It was still a pretty good day.

Brought to you by the letter N

The end of N is in sight, in my alphabetical readings. I’m abandoning E. Nesbit’s The Story of the Treasure Seekers, and just started Nabokov’s Speak, Memory. I’ve requested The Time-Traveler’s Wife on CD from the library, so I can listen to it when I run and walk at the track.

I feel bad about the Nesbit. She had a cool life and is one of the early giants of kidlit…but. The book is narrated by one of the children, and the whole time the author is sharing knowing winks with the audience. In the meantime, the kids are acting out tropes from the storybooks they know, in a tedious way that reminds me of the end of Huckleberry Finn. I don’t get who this stuff is for. Are actual children supposed to read this and understand all the things that the characters don’t, and laugh at them? Or are children supposed to read it innocently, on a level with the characters? I have this same problem with a lot of Milne. Do not get it.

Speak, Memory, on the other hand, is enchanting me. Nabokov’s childhood in pre-revolutionary Russia is so far from everything I know that it has that “everyday life long ago = fascinating” thing going on. And there’s something about the precise way he describes thought and emotional patterns that makes me feel like we know each other, like we’re sitting right next to each other. I’m only 20 pages in, but just got to the bit where he talks about his synesthesia and lists which letters in the English alphabet have which colors in his head. I want to do a color picture of his name, and perhaps below it the “word for rainbow, a primary, but decidedly muddy, rainbow…in my private language the hardly prounounceable: kzspygv.”

Early plans for O: Flannery O’Connor and some of the Sharon Olds poetry I haven’t kept up with in recent years.

One Story

In my last long post I mentioned wanting to see a fiction zine in a one-story-per-issue format, pocket-sized. Today I ran across One Story, which publishes one story per issue, five inches by seven, by subscription only and mailed out every three weeks. They never repeat an author, so it’s not like the New Yorker that accrues a stable of regulars. I knew some, but not most, of the authors in the list of issues past.

This is the first subscription that has tempted me in ages! I ordered the trial two-issue sample and will let you know what I think.

Un-Still Life With Kleenex

I caught a cold over the weekend, and stayed home from work on Monday. It’s not bad as these things go, so I went to the IPRC for class in the evening. I was scheduled to talk for five minutes about a zine I like. Hmm. I had hoped to dig up an exquisite mini-size fiction zine like the late lamented Lunch Hour Stories, one story per issue, since we’re focusing on fiction and that’s the sort of thing I’d love to put out. But in the time-and-germ crunch I ended up going through my shelves and pulling down Beer Frame. Every writer needs to consider the origins and strangeness of everyday objects like the Brannock device, right? And think about marketing campaigns and slogans like “America’s Favorite Banana Milk”?

It was received politely. I have no idea what other people will bring in when it’s their turn. Fun! When I was scanning my shelves, I realized how many of my zines, even the big names, are now defunct and getting onto a decade or more old. Dishwasher. Zuzu and the Baby Catcher. Beer Frame, too– there were ten issues. (Now the author writes Uni Watch, a blog about sports uniforms. Go look if you want to know what comprehensive means.) Zines are supposedly ephemeral, but once they make it to someone’s collection, they stick around– because if you let them go, you may never see them again, Amazon/eBay or no.

I think I need to lay off the Nyquil. It used to make me delightfully sleepy when I had a cold and took it before bedtime TV, but this week I found myself playing Plants vs. Zombies on Sanguinity’s computer until one a.m. Then I slept on the couch until my alarm went off so I could catch a bus at 8:20. It’s been a long time since I was that groggy. It was REALLY HARD to make myself sit up, make coffee, find clothes. And yet, of course, I did it.

It made me wish I could bring that kind of will and discipline to writing. And kind of mad at myself that there’s just no way. I’ll do that to keep a job, I’ll do it if someone is counting on me. But if it were just for myself and writing, I’d have been sleeping. Could be rebellion, could be a short-term/long-term glitch in my brain…whatever. That’s how it is. SO, I need to make getting up for the job do double-duty, and sneak writing in on top of my workday. I’ve decided to make a habit of staying on campus until it’s time to catch the 5:10 bus, which will still get me home by six p.m. I’ll feel more free to do home stuff when I’m home, and when I’m working well I can do that thing I love of writing three times a day, with sessions before work, after work, and in the evening.

I tried it out today. It’s the first week of classes. I had done my usual thing of skimping on lunch because I was busy, so I went to get a bowl of glorified rice and beans by the MAX stop. I quickly realized two things: students order and pay one at a time, not in groups, and they all do it with credit cards. It’s like no one under 21 knows what cash is. It took forever. But then I got some good work done.

Also, last night while Sang was teaching I let myself play as much Plants vs. Zombies as I wanted (hours! set off my first cob cannons!), and then I deleted my account. Its thrall was starting to fade anyway, and it doesn’t fit with the writing. And now I have told you all and cannot go back.

My new diligence comes from this: KFC meeting next Wednesday, and I need to hand out my story to the IPRC class the following Monday, in zine form. So really, I need to write the story by the end of the weekend. Right now, it is a handful of tentative fragments.

And, my IPRC teacher emailed yesterday to say I’ve been assigned a mentor, and it’s Moe Bowstern, who writes a zine about working in commercial fishing in Alaska, and looks so incredibly cool. I so hope I have something worth working over with her by the time we meet in November! It is not that far away.

I am baffled about where running will fit into all this. I feel like I’ll have to adopt one of those “eight minutes a day” exercise plans. But I’ll let the germs clear out before I worry about it.

Happy October, everyone!

Mockingjay

I finished Mockingjay on the bus ride home this afternoon.

Here’s what I can say spoiler-free: it changed my view of the other two books. They’re cast in a different light when I look back.

That effect was so strong that it feels like I changed as I moved through the series.

I love it when a trilogy does that.

Well played.

Meet and Greet at the IPRC

Last night was the first official event of the IPRC Certificate term– a meet and greet with readings by some of the instructors in the poetry, fiction/nonfiction, and comics tracks. (Aww, I typed “meet and great” by mistake!)

I had cleverly arranged to eat dinner with Sanguinity and LeBoyfriend just down the block at the Thai Peacock. I like that place! Dinner was a thank-you to LeB for caring for the dog and garden while Sang and I went to Colorado; Sang presented him with a small bag of garden tomatoes which had finally turned red just this week. (And it’s an early variety!)

After dinner I still had half an hour to kill at Powell’s before turning up at the IPRC. I cruised through the YA section, which was as always full of books I’ve been meaning to read (Gimme a Call and Will Grayson, Will Grayson among others) and wound up at the Nobel Prize for Literature shelf. Somewhere this week I ran across a blog that’s two people corresponding about reading Nobel authors. Like them, I have never or barely heard of most of the winners, and want to read more of their books. I’ll try to remember to check the Nobel list as I continue my Alphabet Reading project. (Up to O, as soon as I’m done with Speak, Memory and an E. Nesbit and The Time-Traveler’s Wife!)

Over at the IPRC when I got there, a card table was set up in the hall with a muslin bag for each of us students. The bag contained a nametag, paperwork about the certificate program and accompanying IPRC membership, and a perfect-bound journal made in-house by an IPRC intern! Sweet! A tour was just starting as I arrived, so I tagged along even though I think I’ve had two or three tours already at various times. Amy the volunteer had a pitch-perfect tour-guide air– not quite hauteur, but definitely guiding and presenting each room while dressed in vintage wool. There’s so much style at the IPRC. And not a cat-sweatshirt lady writer to be seen! You guys, I have a two-year membership there now. :)

I actually suck at meeting and greeting, so I had an awkward period of drifting around, trying the wheat-free Newman’s Oreologues, and holding up the wall. Judging from the nametags, poetry and comics tracks had the best turn-out, and since there are two fiction/nonfiction sections I still don’t know if I saw anyone who will be in my class on Mondays.

It was hot and muggy up there, but we all crowded into a room borrowed from the ILWU (union of the employees of Powell’s Books!) for the reading. B.T. Shaw read poetry– I especially liked a piece she said she’d read only once or twice before. It kept flipping perspectives from a family’s poppy garden, to the father (“Poppy”) and grandfather, to the act of writing about this (using the names of computer keys as commentary). She threw in some short funny poems, too.

Kevin Sampsell represented the fiction/nonfiction team. There is no Portland Hipster more venerable than Kevin Sampsell, and I say that with total admiration. (He runs the small press section at Powell’s as well as an indie press that’s having its 20th birthday this year.) He read from his memoir A Common Pornography— it made a splash in Willamette Week and so on when it came out earlier this year, but I hadn’t heard or read any excerpts yet. It’s good and I’m definitely going to get my hands on a copy and read it! He also read from a new novel MS, similar in format and tone to the memoir.

Shannon Wheeler read last–or rather, talked, and showed his sketchbooks and cartoons on a screen. He had just been to New Orleans with two dozen writers, artists, environmental journalists, and others to witness and document the Gulf oil spill. I could see how what he’d seen and what he had to say were just bursting out of him– he’s collaborating on a graphic novel, figuring it out as he goes. It was inspiring to see that passion, but also my chair was hard and it was almost 9:00, when I was supposed to meet Sang back at Powell’s for a ride home. I hope I’ll get to hear him again without the time crunch sometime. He’s getting cartooons into the New Yorker, which he says likes to get TEN CARTOONS A WEEK from contributors so they can really work with the cartoonists and develop a stable of regulars. Man, that must be a lot of work.

It was a long day, but I left looking forward to workshop this afternoon. I rode home with Sang and she let me unwind with a little Plants vs. Zombies on her computer while she knitted a hat for our neighbor’s baby shower this afternoon. Now I’m going for a run– nice not to have to get in in early before the heat anymore!–and before I know it will climb on a bus to head for the IPRC again.

Found

Sanguinity and I kept a friend company at the Urgent Care clinic on Sunday, and Sang found this 8 1/2 x 11 document, abandoned on a clipboard in the waiting room:

I don’t think the same person was writing and coloring… so maybe the coloring came first? I wonder who, if anyone, delivered the message, and why it was in writing.

DFL at the PCT50

(Warning: this is looooong! I talk about every freakin’ aid station! and lots of other things in between!)

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“She’s so calm,” Sanguinity said about me to Leboyfriend, as we sat in our campsite on Friday night. “If that was me the night before a climb, I’d be all keyed up.”

Call it fatalism, or denial, but the reason I was so calm was that I really didn’t think I would finish the Mt. Hood Pacific Crest Trail 50-Miler Saturday. I mean, fifty miles, that’s just unreal. It seemed like a good idea when I signed up, and I kept telling myself that just making it to the starting line was progress after being DNS (registered but Did Not Start) a couple years ago, but… nah. I’d be pulled at a cutoff.

We all went to bed early on Friday, tired from the omg endless packing that every camping trip seems to involve and the drive up the mountain. (We did make a stop on the way up at Little Crater Lake, where children told each other loudly that if you went in the deep blue water you’d be PARALYZED. By the cold, assumedly, though they made it sound like there were neurotoxins floating around.) I slept soundly until about an hour before the alarm went off, at a quarter to five.

I was taking the early start at 5:30. I pinned my number on (single digits, #9! It was just from registering so early, but I told Sang it meant I was an elite, and that’s why I was in the “first corral” at 5:30. I’m so hilarious), and put on my Dirty Girl gaiters for the first time ever, and somehow I fell into getting-dressed meditation or something, because I looked at my clock and it was 5:21 and I was still at the campsite! Crap! The starting line at the ranger station was close, but not that close. We booked over there in time for the last of the pre-start instructions, so at least I could see where everybody went as they jogged out of the clearing. Sang took my drop bags to turn in, I distributed kisses, and off I went after the rest of the pack.

We followed the Miller Trail to the PCT where it follows the margin of Timothy Lake. There was enough light that no one needed a headlamp; the air was cool but not cold. Pretty, pretty trail, with glimpses of the lake through the trees. The first aid station was close to Little Crater Lake where we’d been the day before. It was minimalist in amenities (no drop bags, porta-potty, or spectators), but had the cheeriest volunteers of any aid station. Someone took my water bottle to refill while I had a little Coke and picked a few snacks from the table. At least one race director must be very into hygiene– everything was in serving-size packets instead of the traditional big bowl o’ food that everyone dips their grubby hands into. This aid station had even placed trash stations a few hundred yards along the trail, so we wouldn’t have to pack the wrappers. Great service!

On to the aid station at Hwy. 58, or as I found out it’s called, “the mosquito place.” Sang and LeB were waiting for me there! I didn’t even need to get into my drop bag, as they had the purple Dr. Eldritch tote with all my race stuff in it. First thing, I combed my hair, which I hadn’t had a chance to do in the rush to start. Then I put on sunscreen while the bugs had a feast. Then up the trail again to the turnaround at Hwy 26, near the Frog Lake sno-park. I was running well and making good time! Sang and LeB met me again. I tried to convince them to skip the mosquitoes on the way back and just meet me back at the start/finish, but they didn’t listen and shooed me onto the trail. :)

My knee started complaining on the way back, but I could still run. I walked some, but played little games to keep running as much as I could. Walk in shade, run in sunshine. Run every time you see bear grass blooming. Stuff like that. And not for the first time, I contemplated my theory that pain below a certain threshold can be metabolized into the kind of stress chemicals that are great for running! (The threshold being nausea.) I decided not to air my theory to Sanguinity in case she was unable to resist a withering look even during my race. Oh, I also thought of lots of brilliant titles and lines for this post. Way better than this. Gone now.

By then the early-start and regular-start people were mingling and there were lots of people passing, coming and going. When I got back to Hwy. 58, I ate some candied ginger from my drop bag and sunscreened my face, which I’d forgotten the first time around. I admit, it was awesome to see LeB and Sang again! Then back to Little Crater Lake and then the ranger station! I pulled in there around noon or 12:15. The knee was dictating more walking, less running, but as I said to my team, “Sometimes I’m still running even when nobody’s looking!” Sang had my pace worked out and was confident I could make the cut-off at the farthest aid station, by 4:15 p.m. I started to wonder, while she got me a flat coke and some salt tabs: was it actually possible that I might finish?

I didn’t think about it much, though, because “one cut-off at a time” was the strategy I’d decided on before the race. That and “be tough.” I’d just been reading about Juli Astairs winning Vol State, so she and Marcia were my toughness models. And Anita Ortiz, and another woman I heard on a podcast who talked about “turning off the pain.”

Soon after I started south both knees were hurting enough that I couldn’t run much at all. A shame to miss all the free speed on the downhills! But power-walking uphills was still fun, and there was quite a bit of level trail. The PCT is graded for horses and tends to follow ridgelines, so as trails go it’s gentle. There were quite a few horses on the trail, and at our campgrounds, too, all looking gorgeous and healthy. I was happy to step off the trail and stand quietly, but as usual felt guilty for taking the uphill side, which I believe is against horsey etiquette. I just don’t want one to slip and fall on me!

Soon I passed a sign marking the border between Mt. Hood National Forest and the Warm Springs Reservation. Traveling on the trail itself is allowed, but no spectators were allowed at the aid stations on Warm Springs land. The first of the two aid stations seemed to be right in the middle of the forest, like magic. (It turned out there was a gravel road just beyond.) I got there at about 1:40, with six miles to go before the turnaround and 4:15 cutoff. I was in good shape.

The knee pain was not good, and I was dismayed when I hit some long, steep-feeling downhills. (Runners who were still, you know, running, probably loved it!) I had to inch my way down some sections. There was a pretty one-log bridge crossing a stream at the bottom, but I didn’t dare stop and play lest I lose time. (The bugs were also a deterrent.) Someone told me I had a beautiful smile, though, so that was a lift. :)

I walked on, mostly uphill now, but already dreading the future downhill this implied. People passing me on their way back from the Warm Springs Meadow aid station told me encouraging things about raspberry sherbet, but I was really low. I had been speed-walking with purpose, but now I was trudging. I wasn’t going to make it back to the finish before the 6:30 cutoff. Should I turn in my race number at Warm Springs Meadow, even if I was there a bit before the cutoff? Or wait to be pulled at the next aid station, where at least I would have made it forty-some miles (but slowly and painfully)?

Luckily, I at least knew that it’s a bad idea to walk into an aid station and quit. What you do is, you sit down and have a drink and a snack and rest a couple of minutes, and then decide. So I did that. The sherbet was awesome. Amazing. I asked the volunteer behind the snack table how the sweeps worked. She said “Well, this aid station closes at 4:15. And the course closes at 6:30? You still have a margin.” (It was about a quarter til four.) I don’t think she really understood my question, but that was good enough for me. I didn’t get into my drop bag at this station either. I turned and walked back down the trail with my ice cream still in hand.

And it went great! For a long time I had good speed and energy. I met a few more people on their way to the aid station, and encouraged them with talk of sherbet like people had encouraged me. (They were insufficiently impressed, like I had been.) I was having a little taste of what I believe is one of the coolest things about ultras– you can fade way down, and then come back. Deer flies zoomed in circles around me and dust hung over the trail, but things were fine.

Two older guys I’d seen from time to time throughout the race passed me. They were in it together, trotting along and getting ‘er done. They asked me if I was okay and if I needed anything; I said, “No, no, my knees are making me slow but I’m good.” They jogged off and I heard one say to the other, “Yeah, I think my age is making me slow!” I caught up to them at the aid station. They’d been booking in case the aid station shut down at 5:30, but although the truck was being packed up there was still ice, water, and gummi bears. (And lots of other stuff, but those three items were what I needed to sustain me.)

Six more miles. My burst of energy had dimmed, but I focused on putting as much distance as possible between me and that aid station, so that if a sweep did come along, I wouldn’t be ordered to go back there. I was glad every time I crossed a dirt road. When I really flagged, I figured that sitting down and a snack were what had revived me before, so I sat on a rock or tree stump long enough to unwrap some food and sneak a peak at my watch. The bugs got me going again. Several very perky people passed me with a “good job.” (That’s the universal thing runners say to each other, so I say it too, although doesn’t it seem a bit judgey?)

The 6:30 cutoff time had passed. I was back in the Mt. Hood National Forest, and looked around to see if Sanguinity might have come to meet me. She wasn’t there, but a bit later down the trail, there she was! She was walking with a guy who I assumed was a sweep, but who turned out to be the brother of another runner. He went on to look for his sister, and Sang turned around to walk me in.

It was great to be with her, and not have to be so self-propelled anymore. We were passed by a couple more people. I stepped aside for a passel of women who were practically dancing down the trail while chatting. One or two of them passed me, but then another one saw the race number pinned to my shirt. “Hey, a RUNNER!” she said. They were the sweeps! Much different than the reluctant but stern figure I had imagined holding out a hand for my race number. Sang made a joke about how we had politely stepped off to let them go by. “Not on our watch!” one said, and they tagged along behind us, removing the ribbons that marked the course and laughing and burbling with each other. (Being a sweep looks fun!)

Finally we came to the road in the campsite, and then up to the road leading to the finish area. LeB was up ahead and called to the race people that a runner was coming. Several kids started yelling it too. By the time I turned the corner there was applause and cheering. Several dozen people were still around and all of them seemed really happy when I crossed the imaginary finish line! I thought it was so, so sweet of the race people to keep the course open past 6:30. They still had bananas and drinks out on a table, and an earnest volunteer told me to sit in ANY chair I wanted. I remembered then to ask Sang what time it was. 7:24, she said. A little under fourteen hours.

I sat on some steps (they really were packing up the furniture) and had a box of delicious warm chocolate milk. Sang was horrified and fascinated. Another volunteer came and dropped some extra snacks off. Aww! I was really happy. Did I mention that Sang and LeB both cried when I finished? :)

I didn’t even have to walk back to the campsite, as the car was parked just up the road. Sang went and got the solar shower she’d been tinkering with during the day and set it up for us. I peeled off my gaiters and shoes and socks to examine my filthy blistered feet. LeB built a fire, and Sang made dinner.

Both feet blistered pretty badly– the ball of each foot is basically a large blister, with extra blisters on each heel and most toes. Clearly at this distance or longer I should pre-tape. The knees recovered quickly, as they do. Race results were posted here this afternoon, and there I am, DFL (Dead Fucking Last, for you non-runners) in 106th place of 106. Another baby step for this baby ultrarunner. “You know where I’d be if this were Badwater?” I said to Sang. “Just past Stovepipe Wells. Looking up at my first climb.” I have a long way to go, if I want to go there.

I don’t have any races on my calendar. I’m going to take awhile and get strong, try to make my knees bombproof again like they were all too briefly after that month of backpacking. I did this race on guts, but if there’s a next one I want to do it on good training and knowledge– and not keep anyone waiting an extra hour again!

I am really happy I finished. Really grateful to my amazing support crew. And really glad to be on Spaceship Couch with my feet up!