It’s now clear that I’ve simply swapped one obsession for another. I haven’t been birding or botanizing much these past few months. Instead, I’m grinding out miles on the trails four and five days a week. Currently, I’m averaging about 40 miles per week of running. And, it’s not surprising, but I still don’t have time to do many other things outside of work and running.

At least I’m getting in great shape, though. According to my watch, I have the fitness of a 33-35 year old. I take that with a grain of salt, but I’ll still take it considering I’ll be 52 years old in a month! Haha 🙂

On July 19th, I paced my friend who ran his third TRTER100 (Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance Race). I began to write an essay about it, but realized that it’s going to be a two-part feature. The link to the first part is below, and in that first installment I describe the setup to the event and what I did to prepare for it. In the second part, I’ll describe the experience.

In the end, however, I ran 29 miles through the night and into the next morning with my friend, Dave. He claims that he couldn’t have done it without me supporting his efforts. He was most definitely struggling with stomach issues the whole time, so it’s possible that my presence helped keep him going. Either way, it was an extraordinary experience for the both of us, and I look forward to sharing that soon.

Here’s my most recent Tahoe Trail Guide article. Another multi-part essay 🙂

My First Experience as an Endurance Run Pacer (Part 1): The Last 29 Miles of the 2026 TRTER 100

“Having stomach problems last couple of hours, trying to work through it, good chance I’ll be later than 1am,” read Dave’s text.

Eight weeks prior, Dave asked me to be one of his pacers during his 100-mile Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance Run (aka TRTER100, July 18-19)…

Okay, so I haven’t been doing much birding or wildlife photography lately. However, I recently traded in an older lens and bought a new Nikkor 400mm/f4.5 prime lens for my Nikon Z8 camera. It’s freakin’ amazing! Just take a look at the photos of the Western Wood-Pewee and Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel below for a sample.

So clean and crisp, and because it’s a Z-mount lens (Nikon’s mirrorless system), it communicates without delay when the autofocus is engaged. I had been using my Nikkor 300mm/f4 prime lens with an adapter, and it yields great photos. However, that 300mm lens is an F-mount lens (older DSLR system), so there’s always some lag time when trying to acquire subjects. Ultimately, it just became frustrating to use with the Z8 body.

Lastly, and much to my surprise, Nikon was actually able to completely repair/refurbish my old Nikon D500 (the one that I broke last fall and replaced with the Z8). So I’m armed and ready for doing more wildlife photography when my summer job eases up in a month or two.