About Me

My Oregon Live Article

Short Story

I used to play tons of soccer at a high level. I now focus my time on endurance events. I like to push my body while experiencing new, beautiful and challenging terrain. I love the speed of biking, but the simplicity of running. So I'll try my hand in both disciplines in a variety of endurance events. I hope to be doing this for the rest of my life.

Long Story

I’ve been an outdoor enthusiast, if you will, for all of my life. While my pursuits outdoor have changed over the years, most all of the things that I do for fun take me outside.

Growing up, I was heavily involved in traditional ball sports. Soccer, basketball, and baseball took up most of free time, with a little track and field thrown in here and there for fitness. Overtime, I dropped sports in order to narrow my focus and improve my skills, ultimately landing on soccer was my primary focus. I went through almost all levels of soccer starting with rec, then classic, Olympic Development Program, Varsity, and Collegiate Div. I, and an NCAA Tournament appearance. Growing up, I wanted to try to go pro, but as my senior collegiate year wound down, I felt like I had had my fill of soccer and began to focus on other activities that I didn’t have time to do while playing competitive soccer for so many years.

I had always loved outdoor activities of any kind. In my youth (Am I still too young to say that?), I did lots of hiking and skiing with my family, but eventually I got bored with hiking as it was too slow. Around that time, my father introduced me to mountain biking at Hagg Lake, from there I was hooked. My father is a collegiate runner turned biker after a serious foot injury made running too painful. My father encouraged my enthusiasm  for bikes and slowly taught me about bikes, taking me to the bike shop each weekend. Although I loved mountain biking, it was relegated to a summer time/vacation activity since my time was dominated with soccer.

In my collegiate years, I was lucky enough to find friends with similar outdoor/athletic passions. Because of them, I was forced to become a better skier in order to keep up and eventually started a slow acceptance of road biking and lycra. From my end, I introduced them to the world of mountain biking, rock climbing (sort of) and trail running.

Ah the trails, so I would consider myself a trail runner until after college although I had technically been running trails since high school. In high school, during track and field training, my coach would take some of us each week to run hills in forest park. Although we stuck close to Washington Park, this is where I first developed a love/appreciation for trail running. I never really liked track and field, and originally did it, just to get in shape for soccer season and also because my dad really enjoyed his experience and thought that I would be good at this. I primarily ran the 400m and 4x400m with the occasional 800m thrown in. I didn’t like track. It was boring. You ran in circles. I got super nervous even in little meets. But I was actually pretty damn good at it. And truly had lots of potential if I had stuck with it, but soccer would always win out for me. I don’t regret quitting track my sophomore year after a disagreement with the coach, (I turned down running the 400m in the state meet to play in a soccer tournament in Washington, yep turned down running on Hayward Field, dont regret it tho) but I do regret never trying cross country. The XC season and soccer season were the same so I never even thought about it. Big Mistake.

But in the end, I grew to love trail running and decided on making it my new focus after college. I love how it allows you to see amazing places without having to go backpacking or spend an even longer time hiking. I loved the simplicity of it. When compared to biking, it requires very little gear and the price of your equipment doesnt dictate how fast you are. Its a relatively level playing field. You can also run in many places that you can't bike (ie wildernesses).

Why ultras? I had always knew that I could run a marathon so I never really had any interest running a marathon, especially 26.2 miles on the boring roads. The trails, however, presented new challenge. Beautiful, more challenging terrain and longer races. A perfect fit. An unknown for me. How far can I go?

I've grown to love endurance sports over the last couple of years. I like the challenge of it. However, I dont really like racing all that much. For me, its not about my time, its about getting to the finish line. Yes I get competitive once I start a race, cant help it, it's in my blood, I don't like losing. But if the races were just big organized group runs with aids stations, I'd actually prefer that. In the end, I just want to be able to run/bike really far so that I see a larger part of the backcountry on my adventures.

Lastly, I do other things outside besides running and biking. I love car camping. Thes rides and runs end with a night it a tent. I enjoy fishing, when I have the time to do it and want to get into fly fishing as a nice leisurely activity outside. I really enjoy skiing, but its too costly at the moment, I'd like to get into backcountry skiing, but I dont see that happening anytime soon. I used to be really into rock climbing, but trail running as taken over primarily due to lack of climbing partners, lack of strength training, and I'm not as likely to die running or biking. I tried whitewater kayaking, but got the shit scared out of me, too likely to die. But I do enjoy, sea kayaking, inflatable kayaking and rec kayaking. I also enjoy backpacking, but unfortunately never really have time for it, but I have all the gear and get out when I can.

Lastly Lastly, I like craft beer. A lot!  I am a self-endorsed beer geek and homebrewer. Maybe this should have been first....