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The Virtual Swiss Alps 800: Running Motivation During a Pandemic
I am not necessarily a highly self-motivated distance runner. I love running for hours on the trails. I love being outdoors. I also love to do lots of other things outdoors. Without races to motivate me I tend to do… lots of other things that aren’t running. I had a decent slate of trail races […]
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Horned Lark with California Poppies
I’m spending a little of my Sunday morning playing around with my photography workflow on an iPad Pro instead of a laptop. My experimental subject is this Horned Lark I photographed this week not far from the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. The Horned Lark is a bird of fields, low grasslands, and other open […]
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Hoyt Mountain
It was Sunday, January 26, 2020. My planned outing for the day started like most new routes: sitting at my computer looking at Open Street Map (which has an amazing amount of trails digitized), trying to find a route that looked interesting enough to do, and researching recent reports on the internet from others that […]
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Memories of the Pantanal: The Bridge
It was September 14, 2003. I was leading a birding tour throughout Brazil with the great Juan Mazar Barnett (who died way too young in 2012). We had just left the boat we’d spent a week on in the Rio Negro outside of Manaus and were now in the Pantanal. We had already faced many […]
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On Distance Running and Goal Setting: Making the Infinite Finite
[Featured image: my wife Emily and I during the Shadow of the Giants 50K] There has been a “Ten Year Challenge” thing floating around Facebook of late. I decided to participate, which got me thinking in the larger sense about the concept of a challenge in and of itself. The “Ten Year Challenge” focuses on […]
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On Becoming Intimate with Mount Hillyer
This was supposed to be my year. Until it wasn’t. Angeles Crest 100: 4 / Marcus England: 0. I came into this year’s Angeles Crest 100 feeling confident. I had completed the extremely difficult Chimera 100, the secretly challenging Javelina Jundred, then – this June – the Mohican 100 in extremely difficult conditions. Sure, I […]
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Mud, Sweat, and Tears: An Annotated Social Media Accounting of my 2019 Mohican 100
June 15 and 16, 2019 were the dates of the 30th running of the Mohican 100 at Mohican State Park in Loudonville, Ohio. I chose to run this race as I was born and raised in Ohio and Mohican was an important part of my upbringing. I also DNF’d this race at around mile 55 in 2015 due to the effects of heavy rain.
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Bird Notes: January 2019
Los Angeles County Life List As noted in my end of the year blog post, it is a goal of mine (likely an impossible one) to boost my Los Angeles County life list of bird species observed to 400. I started the year at 302. I brought the total to 310 by the end of […]
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Turning the Page
I’ve never fully endorsed new year’s resolutions, opting instead to try for continuous self improvement. I’m not saying I always achieve that, but I do try. That being said (er, written), the start of a new year is a good time to review what has been accomplished and to set goals that have a time […]
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That Jurt Like Jell: My Javelina Jundred Story
[Featured image: Overwhelmed with emotion at the finish line of the Javelina Jundred. Photo by the incomparable Howie Stern.] A 100 mile trail race is much more than just the event itself. It’s a journey. It’s the decision to enter the event. It’s the long training process. It’s life that happens along the way. It’s […]
England | Ecology 