vole stare toad race 72 hour update sunday bloody sunday . while we slept the vol state field was savaged. the early morning check-in only shows 15 drops the real number is greater. as defeated runners are not taken down until they get in a car. . all along the course runners are waiting for the meat wagon. many others are still moving but their race is hanging on by a thread…. . and there Read more
vol stare toad race 60 hour update how long has it been since i got on that ferry? . two and a half days is a lifetime. all that extraneous stuff in your previous life has melted away. the worries of 3 days ago seem frivolous. what really counts? something to drink. something to eat. a patch of shade… . movement. moving is everything. every minute spent not moving is another minute your feet will Read more
maybe it is just me. but i dont think any lost gear should ever be returned. if you cant keep track of your stuff when you have to carry everything you own with you then you dont deserve to have it! hots was a never ending stream of… . "oh no, i seem to have lost my drivers license and all my credit cards when i emptied every item out of my pack onto a Read more
please god, let it get hot again it is 0730 and the vol staters have been on the road for two days now. last night was hard. not amazing and wonderful hard. just hard. and we saw some more casualties. . the worst thing for your hopes of finishing seems to be a crew. crewed runners quit at twice the rate of those who are just. abandoned alongside the road. the next biggest killer; the Read more
36 hour update: vol state they’re all gonna cry . once again the weather dealt the vol staters a big break… . unless they were trying to plan. rather than turning the heat up all afternoon a line of thunderstorms swept thru the field. for the runners that was a hot or miss. some runners got battered; gale force winds and rain in buckets. others got but only a few spattering drops. we got lucky Read more
vol state 24 hour update quiet desperation you can’t quite say the sun has risen on the most crucial day of the vol state. there is light, but a layer of fog envelops a world where dew point and ambient temperature have switched their normal places. the runners’ world seems to be wrapped in a hot wool blanket. 90 degrees at 0700 is a hell of a start to a day that promises hell. . Read more
vol state 12-hour update . digging holes . the fascinating thing about a race like the vol state is that no two years are the same. one of the defining features of 2023 may turn out to be the 81 virgins who have been thrown into battle. green troops need to be seasoned with veterans. . passing unnoticed were the bullets dodged today. the fierce thunderstorm that was supposed to hit us on the ferry Read more
it is the night before the night before and i do not know who is better off. virgins or veterans the virgins stand at the mouth of the beast. they peer into that yawning chasm and do not know what awaits them there. it has become suddenly so imminent. many of their comrades in innocence have blinked. their nerve has broken and they are now at home wondering how their adventure ended so prematurely. but Read more