Scott’s Blog

I recently received a copy of a new book featuring select endurance running events on all seven continents. “Extreme Running” is beautiful. The photography says plenty on its own. From the top of the world to the bottom, it captures the “extremes” in foot races- from the hottest to the coldest, the wettest to the driest, the highest to the lowest. Beauty everywhere. In addition, authors Kym McConnell and Dave Horsley capture the human spirit through the athletes’ experiences.

As well as making for a great coffee table book, it’s a way to travel from the living room, gaining inspiration to explore new environments and cultures, something I value greatly. When we travel and race in “extremes,” we explore inward, the ultimate journey.

Coming off of a spectacular season filled with new adventures, tough competition, successes, lessons, and a couple of bizarre traumatic injuries, I’ve decided to call it a year. Having been eager to try a 24 hour race for the unique ability to “race” against all other previous 24 hour runners, I had been thinking I’d make my first attempt at Across the Years this 31st of December. However I usually take at least four weeks off this time of year to recover mentally and physically and quite frankly I feel like doing just that right now rather than waiting until January to do so. (more…)

This past Sunday, I loaded up my bicycle with at least 50 pounds of local, organic food. Not in ownership of a car, this is nothing unusual, although these are special occasions when I have to be creative about using the panniers, rack, and a backpack.

Not more than a mile from my Seattle apartment is the Broadway Farmer’s Market where I bought ten pounds of pinto beans from one of my favorite growers. In the Yakima Valley, Alvarez Farms grows peppers, tomatotillos, onions, garlic, peanuts, beans, and much more. They tell me next week they’ll have two other varieties of beans which I also plan to stock up on. Their fresh beans I’ve bought in years past, but wished I’d done so in larger quantities as the freshness is like nothing else! (more…)

Last February I did an interview with EliteRunning.com. We discussed my training, transition to becoming vegan, racing, and ultrarunning in general. I’m commonly asked a lot about these topics and feel this interview provides some insight.

Tomorrow, Saturday November 3, is the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for the Men’s Marathon. More than 130 Olympic hopefuls, the fastest field in history, will start at Rockefeller Center at 7:35 AM, run through Time’s Square, and continue with five loops of Central Park. Usually a small-field, stand-alone race, I’m envious of anyone there to watch it before Sunday’s NYC Marathon. But the event will be broadcast live on NBCSports.com. I’m not going to miss that!