I went to Kenya again and Zambia for the first time. It was a quick trip for work. I did four days of research transparency presentations (IPA, APHRC/CARTA, and MCA Zambia) and then went to Livingstone and Victoria Falls for fun.
George's cousins
Evening runs after the Kenya workshop featured zebras, wildebeest, and gazelles
It sucks to be so close to where the coffee beans are grown and yet have to drink crap imported instant the entire trip. (And it's a real economic problem, since sub-Saharan Africa does little value-added processing of its natural resource exports.)
A tad better than a skunky Tusker I had earlier in the trip
Incredible
Big
Africa can do thunderclouds
Met up with my friend Francis, who CDT folks may remember.
I also took a 15-minute flight over the falls in a microlight, which is basically a lawnmower with wings. I saw elephants and hippos above the falls. I didn't pay the extra $20 for the video though, and you're not allowed to bring a camera for safety reasons, so just watch this other person's video and say "Wow, that looks cool." Because it was.
Me at the Border I spent the weekend at the ADZPCTKO with Nitro , Tatu Joe, Ducky (the Wise) , Tomato, BearCan't , Mattress, Love Barge, Nano, Sly, Disco , WeatherCarrot, Too Obtuse, Nacho, Tall Paul, Mags , and Wildflower (AKA Icognito Cheeto Bandito). I got a ride down with Firefly. I'm tempted to just end my post there, as it would seem like complete gibberish to many of you. But I won't. The ADZPCTKO is the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kickoff, held the last weekend in April (also known as NFL Draft weekend, where, miracle of miracles, the Redskins, despite Dan Snyder's best attempts to screw it up, actually managed to avoid throwing away multiple draft picks on Chad Johnson and instead traded for more picks. Hallelujah!) at Lake Morena campground, 20 miles north by trail from the Mexican border near Campo, CA. Conventional wisdom says that the weather window on the PCT is such that there's not much point to starting earlier thanks to snow in the S
I ran the 50th Western States Endurance Run June 24-25 in a disappointing 28:54. I mean, 50 years ago a guy ran a horse race, and 47 times since then a footrace of similar distance has been held. (There was one fire cancellation and one COVID cancellation.) So it's kind of the 48th running in the 50th year, but whatever. By disappointing I mean it took me longer than 24 hours, and it took me longer than the 25:30 it took me when I did it 10 years ago. (And by 10 years ago I mean 10 years, not eight, though I believe I applied eight times in those 10 years, having not bothered to apply in 2014, and if I remember correctly, COVID meant they rolled over 2020 without a new lottery.) I trained hard and consistently from early March through May 20, going as far as hiring an online coach. That seemed to work well, until it didn't. I hurt my hamstring running the Silver State 50K (more on that in my previous post ) and babied my hamstring for the final five weeks prior to Western Stat
A couple from Scotland did a version of the Big Sky Alternate/Butte Super Cut-Off on the CDT and put up new maps for the southern half (which they did differently than I did) and a very handy overview map. Check it out.
the victoria falls airplane ride does look really cool. jealous, babe. and i like that flower photo, obvi.
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