Cactus Rose 100 Mile Race Report
My only prized possession from my military days is this poster - a before-and-after satellite picture of some of our crew's handy-work from a B-1 mission I flew in Iraq. The buildings were being used as a factory for IED / roadside bombs. Well-managed chaos - goal of any ultramarathoner I just realized the mission was almost exactly 10 years ago, and I hadn’t thought about until I randomly glanced at it this morning to notice the date… but there’s a connection to ultra-running here. I used many JDAMs (GPS-guided weapons) on the buildings – JDAMs are one of the ways we take something inherently uncontrollable (giant explosions from thousands of pounds of TNT), and mitigate the risk to surrounding areas by controlling exactly where, and when, it detonates. This rings true to me for ultramarathons. Unpredictable things will happen, you’ll have really low lows, and be in a lot of pain. But you can plan for it, adjust your mindset, and be in control of how much those