What does it mean to love a river under the specter of climate change, and what does queerness have to offer?
Read MoreRivers as Home, Rivers as Relatives
Moonshot
On logging the miles, racing ambitiously, failing hard - and of course having fun the whole time.
Read MoreOn Surgery and Self
On the interconnections between running, trails, queerness, and academic research - as catalyzed by surgery.
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Just This Lap
This weekend, I found myself glued to YouTube as a spectator of the Quarantine Backyard Ultra. The ultrarunning race started at 6:00am on Saturday morning. It’s now midafternoon on Monday, and 56 hours later, the race is still going. The Quarantine Backyard Ultra combines the grinding monotony of a backyard ultra with the coronavirus demand of physical isolation. Each of the race’s 2,000 participants signed up to run 4.17-mile laps, alone, in their backyards. It is incomprehensible and mesmerizing. Somehow, I cannot turn away.
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The Green River, one of the most remote places in the lower 48.
An Elegy for Concrete Dreams
I have been lucky to get to know a few fabled rivers in my life. But I did not know that rivers are alive until I pushed a humble kayak into the Green River above Desolation Canyon.
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What risks are invisible to us in alpine environments?
Considering Risk
The person most likely to die in an avalanche is a skilled backcountry skier who has recently taken an avalanche safety course. In an alpine environment, what risks are worth taking? And how do alpine risks relate to climate change adaptation?
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The new normal.
Climate Change as Civic and Spiritual Crucible
To survive climate change, we must learn to live together, with less. The American dream of ownership, entitlement to consume, and complete individual freedom must dissolve. A new American dream - an archetype of fulfillment that we both live by and export - must assimilate visions of collective sacrifice, mutual care, fierce compassion, and the repair of legacies of violence.
Read MoreJoy belongs in running and in science.
Incrementalism: Why Running Makes Me a Better Scientist
Running has proven to me that motivation follows action, that sustained effort opens doors, that I am capable of so much more than I ever thought I was growing up. These lessons translate into my science: the opportunity of a six-year PhD program excites me because running taught me how to marshal my energy over months and years toward radical self-transformation. In this phase of life, my science is intricately intertwined with my sport; they are not separate, because the energy and lessons of each endeavor feed the other.
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The Hoover Dam - ingenuity, hubris, inheritance.
Doctoral Motivation
When it comes to water management, the past is no longer a useful predictor of the future. It’s time to get creative in how we store, move, allocate, and consume water.
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