#also i want marc to push him over and mount him

[yaoigovroom]

handsy..

full here

[ievenranthisfar]

Going Really Big At The Bigfoot 200

I’m only 165 miles in. Still more than 40 to go. Pain shoots up through the bottoms of my feet. Every step feels like the trail is covered in broken glass, but it’s just the early stages of trench foot setting into my waterlogged soles. For the last half hour I’ve been practicing meditative breathing—in throoough the nooose, outttt throooough the nooose—just to take my mind off the shudders of pain rippling through my body.

I might hyperventilate.

I’m so deep in the pain cave, I’m not sure where the entrance was. And it’s very, very dark in here.

Just then, a realization washes over my body—a glimmer of hope. I pick my head up and croak at my pacer, “Hey Marc, I just had a pleasant thought.” “What’s that?” “At least I never have to run Badwater now.”

Who needs some sissy 135-mile race when you can go 206.5 instead, right?

Of Course

My obsession with the Bigfoot 200 started the moment I crossed the finish line at Western States in 2016. States is the granddaddy of 100-milers, after all, and I had just executed a nearly flawless race. It felt like the culmination of something. No 100 will ever come easy, but it felt like I had figured them out. I needed something that scared me again.

And that’s how, one Friday morning in August, I find myself standing at a starting line in the middle of a remote section of the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. My mind is remarkably calm. There’s nothing to be nervous about; who can predict what’s going to come over the next 206.5 miles and 86,000 feet of elevation gain? I just have to let it happen at me. And it’s about to.

What it takes to run 200 miles apparently.

All smiles... at check-in. (Howie Stern)

My amazing (and still fresh-smelling) crew: Peter, Erin, Marc, and one big ole puppy. (Peter Dawson)

Laughing or crying? Hard to tell.  (Howie Stern)

A whole bunch of idiots. (Howie Stern)

3!... 2!... 1!... Go!

A mass of 160-something bodies lurch off the starting line. Within 50 feet, I find myself out front already. Someone’s gotta win. Why not me? I say to myself, a mantra I adopted many years ago.

Leading already? (Howie Stern)

The first miles are generally easy. Soft, dusty trails under a tunnel of pines. Three of us—me, Ryan and Ben—pull out front on our own, chatting intermittently with the standard ultrarunning small talk.

As we break out of the trees and into the volcanic rock, Ryan pulls away. Run your own race, I remind myself. There’s about 200 miles left of it…

We’re on the south side of Mount St Helens, the volcano which famously blew in 1980, instantly ripping apart hundreds of square miles in every direction. Our route will take us through the barren blast zone where little has managed to survive.

Thar she blows.

As we gain elevation, we enter the field of volcanic boulders. Bubbly, black and sharp, the rocks are a jumbled mess, and I hop my way from one to another, following large wooden poles that define the route. It’s fun, and I nearly slip and slice my entire body open only twice. I’m wearing my trusty New Balance Summit Unknowns. They’re too minimal to go the full distance, but they’re perfect for the nimble scampering I need to do here. My poor gaiters are not as lucky, however. The sharp rock makes quick work of the cords that wrap under my shoes, and soon they gaiters are flapping freely around my ankles, letting in all the dirt they want. I chuckle to myself, Of course.

I make it to the first aid station, Blue Lake (mile 12.2), feeling good, aside from a couple of bee stings I’ve already acquired because, Of course. I fill all four of my bottles, dump ice into my ice bandana and shovel some watermelon and grapes down my gullet. The next section is going to be a long one. More than 18 miles in the open sun.

I’ve caught Ryan, but he takes off so I hurry to follow him. Run your own race, I try to remind myself.

The trail winds us in and out of pockets of forest, mixed with sections of skeleton trees. They stand bare and bleached in the sun—a whole forest of death. Seems like a good sign.

When the trail opens up again, I can see that we’re going to descend down to a big river. I pick up some speed, slaloming down the rutted trail and enjoying the ride.

Suddenly, WHAP!

It all happens so fast I don’t even understand. All I know is that I’m flat on the ground saying the word, “Oof.” I pick up my poles, and one of them dangles in the air like a snapped crab leg. Of course I snapped a pole 15 miles into a 200-mile race. Of course.

Embarrassed but unhurt, I take off again. The broken pole whips around with every bounce. It’s annoying. Finally, I devise a system where I tuck it under one arm while I use the good pole in the other hand. For a brief moment, I feel like Killian at last year’s Hardrock. Except he dislocated his entire shoulder, and you just snapped a pole, I hear myself say. Right.

The course moves clockwise up and around the volcano, and soon I break into blast zone. Vast, desolate, gray and dusty, there’s little life here and even less water. But despite the direct assault by the sun, I’m moving well and feeling good.

Of course I broke a pole 15 miles in. (Scott Rokis)

Things are strange out here. I discover an insect I name the Sprinkler Bug because, well, I that’s what I thought it literally was at first. It chirps just like those lawn sprinklers that spin slowly and then come back fast. Tct, tct, tct, tct, tct, tctctctctctct! At another point, we climb switchbacks up a massive ridge of soft gray dust. I’ve never been to the Moon, but now I don’t need to.

I’m rationing water now. I still have miles to go before the aid station, but my 80 oz is running low. The race directions said something about a water source at mile 16 of the section; I’m just praying I’m close.

A half mile later, I hear something glorious: water. Coming around a curve, I spy a grove of plant life bursting from the rocks. I break through it to see a tumbling waterfall. “Oh-ho yeah!” I exclaim involuntarily and out loud. I pull out my Katadyn filter bottle and greedily begin guzzling water. It’s so clear and cold I nearly get brain freeze. It’s a proper oasis in the middle of a desert.

After dunking my hat and bandana in the glacier-fed water, I bound off with new life. Eventually, the trail hits a dusty fire road, and I begin to climb up on my approach to the Windy Ridge aid station (mile 30.3).

Pole still broken. Because of couse. (Howie Stern)

“Can anyone do some surgery on a trekking pole for me?” I ask as I blow in waving my janky broken pole around in the air. No one seems to want to really be responsible for this fool’s errand, but eventually someone finds some duct tape and gets to work. I know there’s no way they’re going to be able to make it functional; it’s fully snapped in one place and smashed in another. But seeing as I have no crew for another 10 miles, I just don’t want it whipping around anymore.

The duct tape job is so bad that it’s funny. The poor volunteer has created a splint from a spare—but not straight—stick which is then wrapped in black duct tape a few dozen time. The effect is that my pole has grown a malignant tumor. But it’ll do the job. I shove a few potato chips in my mouth, thank the volunteers for their help and bound off.

The Chase

There’s a short out-and-back to get to the Wind Ridge, and by the time I complete it, I come to a confusing sign directing 200-milers to turn right. But there’s no right turn, just desert. Hmm. I run a little more until I come upon Ryan. He’s standing in the trail waiting for me. “I guess we go this way?” he points to the trail we’re on. It’s not a full right turn like the sign suggested, more of a very gentle branch. But we decide it must be right and take off together.

Ryan and I share the next set of miles together, picking up our standard ultrarunner chatter again. We cross washes, bushwhack through dense underbrush and just start to bake in the sun a little. Turns out he’s doing the Triple Crown (Bigfoot 200, Tahoe 200 four weeks later and Moab 240 three weeks after that). Now I’m really impressed but also a hair confused why he’s running out front like that. No mind, we push on.

The trail eventually begins to climb up as we point towards the observation point and our next aid station at Johnston Ridge, mile 39.9. I start to get a little wild hair and think, Eh, let’s push it. I ramp up my speed and start to leave Ryan. I find that being able to come into aid stations ahead of other people is a huge mental boost, for me and for my crew (which in turn is another boost for me).

The view of Mount St Helens and the blast zone, from Johnston Ridge. (Peter Dawson)

I get into the aid, grab a hunk of watermelon and find my godsend of a crew, Marc, Peter, and Erin, for the first time in 40 miles. “Wow! You look amazing!” they tell me. “I’m having fun.” “You’re blazing out there!”

“I’ve got an assignment for you guys. You think you can do some surgery on this thing?” I hold up my sad, dangling Z-Pole. Everyone stares at it. Yikes. Finally, Marc offers a solution, “Hey, I’ve got a pair of adjustable Lekis. Why don’t you just take them?” He shoves them into my hands. They’re new, pristine, never been used. I feel bad sullying them. But I think it’s about my only option if I want to finish this thing. God bless you, Marc.

I munch some pretzels and we change out my Summit Unknowns for my cushier Hierro v2s. They’re the biggest shoes I’ve ever run in, but I’m crossing my fingers that they’re going to save my legs because #166milestogo.

By the time I’ve switched shoes, figured out the new poles and fixed my fussy SPOT Tracker we’re all required to carry, Ryan has taken off ahead of me. I wave to my crew and the volunteers and go to chase him down.

It’s now late afternoon. The sun is high and the trail exposed. I’m pushing the pace to catch back up with Ryan, and I think to myself, I don’t remember it being this hot a few minutes ago. Maybe I’m pushing too hard.

I’m starting to question myself when I see Ryan a few switchbacks below me. I lock in and start careening downhill. It’s a little surprising how quickly I catch him. He sort of grunts a nice “Hey” at me, and I realize he’s hurting. And with that, I’m gone.

Over the next few miles, bodies of several 100Kers litter the trail. It’s hot, and the distances between aid stations are too long for inexperienced runners. Poor 100Kers.

I saunter into Coldwater Lake aid (mile 46.5) feeling good. Really good. I’ve been looking at my splits, and I’m almost an hour up on course record pace. Did not see that coming.

Getting prepped for the first night already. (Peter Dawson)

“Hi, Peter!” (Peter Dawson)

“Bye, Peter!” (Peter Dawson)

Headlight in pack, I roll out. This section to Norway Pass promises to be one of the hardest—20 miles, more than 5,000 feet of gain, all as the sun sets. But for now, I’m just enjoying myself. The trail follows the length of Coldwater Lake, and the trees give me reprieve from the heat that’s undoubtedly out there in the sun. Life is good.

After what feels like a few miles, I cross a bridge and start heading up switchbacks. Ah, the climbing begins. All along the trail bushes of various wild berries burst open. Huckleberries, blackberries, raspberries, thimbleberries. I pluck their gifts as I go hiking by. Natural trail magic.

Eventually, I top out and find myself high above the landscape below. The sun hangs low in the sky, and the trail snakes its way under ridges and peaks. Up and over a crest and suddenly the whole of Mount St Helens is laid out in the distance. The volcano has her own ring of clouds clinging to her. And in the golden hour, everything glows amber. I’m totally gobsmacked. I turn another corner and suddenly Mt Adams comes into view in the far distance too. My insides ignite with pure joy. It’s hands-down the most spectacular sunset I’ve ever witnessed. And I have it all to myself.

I’m totally alone for miles and miles. Up here. I’m on top of the world. I slow down and breathe it in.

Continuing on, alpine lakes unfold below me, hidden from the rest of the world behind a fortress of peaks. A third of their surfaces are covered in white. For a moment, I don’t understand what I’m looking at. Then I realize it. They’re massive tree trunks, bleached in the sun. The lakes are covered in them. They must be from the blast, killed off decades ago and left to float on the lakes. I know I’m the only person who will see these tonight, and I feel immensely lucky.

Just then I hear a screech. It’s high and sharp and echoes off the mountains. There’s only one thing it can be. Mountain lion. Oh heeeey.

The sun sets at 8:25, but I’ve always liked to run in twilight so I keep going without my headlamp, seeing how far I can get before absolutely needing it. Turns out I can make it all the way to 9:00. OK, I’ve tempted fate long enough, I say to himself as images of me eating shit in the blackness play in my brain.

Headlamp on, I top out again and seem to be heading downhill. There’s a quick out-and-back to tag the Mt Margaret peak. I’m sure it’s lovely in the daylight. In the dark, it’s mostly just very dark.

I careen downhill, eager to make it to the next aid. Finally, a faint light appears in the valley below. I remember a race report saying that the aid would be visible but still very far away. But after what feels like a few miles, it’s still very far away. Maybe that’s not it? It’s the only light I see out there in the inky night. But is that really it? After what seems like an eternity of “Guess-If-That-Light-Is-The-Aid-Station” I come upon a sign that reads “Norway Pass 1 mile”. Guess it is. And it’s still kinda far away.

Another down in and I come into Norway Pass aid station, mile 65.2. After being alone in the dark for so long, the sudden buzz of activity and light is a little shocking. Someone brings a blanket—it’s getting chilly now—and I request a cheeseburger and Coke.

There’s a boy of about six years old who’s very excited to see me. “I said he was going to be here soon, and then he showed up!” he keeps repeating proudly. “I said he was going to be here soon, and now he’s here! Do you want chili? Coffee?” He flitters around me like an overly excited mosquito.

For a moment, I think of my own one-year-old boy at home, and I’m taken out of the race. Watching this kid bounce around, I think to myself, One day my baby will grow up to be a super-annoying little boy, just like this one.

Into The Heart of Darkness

Burger in belly, I shove off again. The trail out of Norway is in bad disrepair. Bushes obstruct the trail and dead trees lay littered everywhere. At one point, the trail seems to dead-end into pure forest. I stop, feeling it’s wrong, but go ahead and push my way through a mess of pines. After 20 feet of thick bushwhacking, I turn around. I try a different entry point and push through. Another 15 feet and nothing. I turn around again. I try a third time, but nothing. This seems bad. Finally, I turn around and look behind me. There’s a hairpin turn in the trail at about a 350-degree angle. A ribbon sits squarely but invisibly in the middle. Ahh. In my frustrated state, I can’t remember which way I’ve come. Or more importantly, where I’m going. Everything starts to look the same. I pick the right side and start going. But it feels weird to be going uphill. I stop and turn around to try the other direction. I make it a little way down this direction before I see something familiar feeling. Now I’m very confused. Stop. Breathe. Think. I pull out my iPhone and switch it on. We were required to load the race into our Gaia GPS app before the race. Thank God. I look at it. Yep, I’m definitely going the wrong way. Score one for Gaia.

Heading back in the right direction, I start to feel better. The trail improves, and I enjoy some night miles once more.

The trail seems to be crawling with all kinds of thing. I see toads hop away from my feet. Salamanders wriggle under leaves. And bugs of all kind squirm everywhere. I’m not having hallucinations, but my mind starts to play a game where it makes faces out of every leaf or rock I step over. At one point, I look down a see a rock that’s clearly Zombie Barack Obama.

I’m enjoying my time so much that I forget the last time I saw a marking. They’ve been spaced rather far apart, but, Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention? I keep going, suddenly on high alert. Nothing. The trail begins to climb. A lot. For some reason, that doesn’t feel right. My hands are on knees as I’m pushing uphill. Where is the damn marking? I’m starting to panic a little again. But, foolishly, I keep going. The markings HAVE been really far apart, I convince myself, not wanting to admit what I’m fearing.

Stop. Breathe. Think. Common sense finally appears. I stop and pull out Gaia again. I’m off-course. By a lot. Somehow I’m on a parallel trail to the correct trail. (Unless GPS is placing me slightly off, and I’m really on the right trail?) I wonder if I can connect to the right trail if I continue, but that doesn’t seem likely. What if I bushwhack? Dense brush, going fully off-trail, not a good idea, my common sense rebuts. The only option is to turn around. So I do.

It takes me a long time to get back. At least 15 or 20 minutes. I’ve probably added a minimum of two miles to my race by the time I get back to what Gaia tells me is the proper trail. There, I find a three-way intersection. I see flagging uphill, where I came from originally. And then I see a flag pointing down the trail I’ve just backtracked on. Meaning, according to that flag, I was on course. But my Gaia is telling me otherwise. I look off to the only trail I haven’t gone. No flagging, but Gaia says it’s right. I cautiously proceed, wondering what the hell is going on. Confusion mixes with anger with just a dash of annoyance.

A ways down the trail, I finally see it: a flag. Finally. A little farther, another flag. Farther still, another flag. OK, I must be on the right trail. It starts to dawn on me that the flag pointing downhill at the intersection was placed incorrectly—maybe by a bad course-marker? But by then, I’ve already gone too far to turn back and fix it. I’ve already added enough extra miles tonight.

The side effect of the episode is that now I’m super paranoid. Suddenly I can’t trust any marking. Any time I go more than a couple of minutes without seeing a ribbon, I start to freak. The forest suddenly feels a little more sinister.

That’s right when a bird hit me.

It flies right smack-dab into my chest. OK, weird.

A few minutes later, I hear something directly off to the right side of the trail. It sounds big. Like, pretty darn big. But thinking it’s just a deer, I don’t worry, and it seems to disappear. Fifteen seconds later, I hear it again, it’s directly off to the right. Still. It’s paralleling me. I hear it crashing through the underbrush, still precisely off to my right. IS THAT BIGFOOT??? Objectively I know it’s not, but also, I mean, the race is named for him. Now I’m proper freaked. I begin shouting and singing nonsense, hoping Bigfoot hates my voice. He must because I don’t hear him after that.

It begins to rain now. Just a little. But enough to make the trail slick.

I enter a small, narrow canyon with the trail built onto a shelf. Or at least that’s the best I can tell from the beam of the headlamp through the rain.

Suddenly, through the darkness I hear, CRACK!

Holy shit, there’s lightning now??

The thunder sounds as if it struck just a few hundred feet to my right. Then I think, Wait a second. There was thunder but no lightning. That’s weird. Then it dawns on it. That wasn’t lightning; that was a tree falling. OH GREAT. I look up suspiciously. THE ENTIRE FOREST IS READY TO FALL DOWN AND KILL ME. If I was paranoid before, I’m out of my mind now.

Finally, mercifully, I make it to Elk Pass aid at mile 76.3, alive. I immediately start blubbering about the trail marking fiasco. “It’s somewhere near Badger Peak,” I tell the aid station captain. “Oh, I know exactly where that is. Same thing happened last year. Someone vandalized the course.” “Oh man.” “Yeah, these stupid local kids on dirt bikes go out there and switch up the markings. Think it’s funny.” It’s a bit of relief to know that it wasn’t my fault. But also, what the hell?

I sit down to regroup and eat some more real food for the first time in hours. As I do, someone asks if I saw any wildlife out there. “Uh, well, I heard a mountain lion, got hit by a bird and am pretty sure I was being hunted by Bigfoot.” It feels good to have a laugh and know that all that’s in the past.

The good news is that I’m still well up on my splits. The course record feels within reach. I’m going for it. I wave everyone farewell and head out.

But the stress of the night has taken its toll. I feel worked. A cold is slowly materializing in my chest and nostrils, adding to my general feeling of shittiness. Not only that, I’ve been relying on gels between aid station stops for most of this first day, and they don’t seem to be giving me everything I need.

The trail rolls, then climbs. I start to feel a little foggy. It’s now very, very early morning, that magical time when things get weird in a race. Fifteen miles to the next aid and my first pacer. I just have to make it.

Things get colder too. This is not fun anymore. A deeply awful feeling suddenly washes over me. This is impossible. It’s too much.

A terrible idea takes root: I’ve just run 70 miles. I HAVE TO DO THAT TWO MORE TIMES. All that I just did. Again. Twice.

The flame that’s been burning inside me suddenly extinguishes. Poof.

It’s not that I don’t want to finish; I just don’t know how. It’s just not possible.

It’s a black pit. I’m standing at the bottom of the Dawn Wall, staring up, no rope, no clue what to do. That task in front of me does not compute.

This is impossible. It’s just not possible.

It’s the first time I’ve felt like dropping in years and years. But it comes on so suddenly that I feel like I’ve been punching in the gut.

I begin formulating my exit plan. When is it OK to drop? Where can I drop? What will that feel like? How is my crew going to feel? The last question hits me. I realize how shitty it will be if I asked them to take off almost a week of their lives to come out in the middle of nowhere, just to have me drop. I start to feel really bad.

You feel bad for them? What about you?? a voice asserts. Just think of the time and training and preparation and—screw it—MONEY that YOU put into all of this? It’s true. It’d be pretty shitty to just give up this easily.

Plus… the voice winds up for its final knockout punch. There’s a pause.

Yes?... I ask.

You know you’ll just have to come back and run this again if you drop.

Shit. I know it’s right. And I am not about to come back and run this dumb race again. No way.

And with that, I resign myself to finishing. I’m back in.

I top out of the climb and beginning rolling downhill. In the fog—both metaphoric and literal—my legs work at an embarrassingly suboptimal pace. Picking my way down the rutted-out trail, I finally reach the bottom and spill onto a dirt road. I’ve made it to the mile 91.3 aid station, Road 9327

Marc, Erin, and Peter are there. “I need to sleep,” I announce. They hurry me into the back of the rented Suburban. Mercifully, I rip off my dusty shoe and slide into the trunk. “Get me in 15 minutes,” I mutter as they shut the Chevy-branded sarcophagus on me.

I close my eyes, and all I can feel is cold and the ribbed, plastic bed of the truck on my back. I shift left and right. Nothing makes me feel as sleepy as I know I should feel.

I remember advice from my friend Bryce who said he wasted an hour trying to fall asleep last year. I’m determined to not let that happen. After ten minutes of bullshit, I sit up. My caffeinated gels must be working a little too well. I knock on the window and beg to be let out. Oh well.

By the time I’m out, my breakfast is ready. Eggs, bacon, coffee. It’s glorious. I scarf it greedily. It’s amazing. Then it dawns on me: I need to switch to real food. These formulated gels and chews can only do so much for me. If I’m out here for two and a half days, I need good stuff on my stomach. I ask them to whip me up a quesadilla to go.

Day Two Dawns

Reluctantly, I strap my shoes back on. Time to go. At least I have Marc with me now. We say goodbye and amble down the mountain farther. The morning light filters through fog, and things feel a little better. We chat and catch up. It’s nice to share miles with someone again.

Meanwhile, back in the crew car... #vanlife (Erin Gardner Dawnson)

Marc has downloaded the course onto to his InReach. After a bit, he announces, “OK, I think we have this climb and then we head down to the aid.” We climb for a while longer. At one point, in the total middle of nowhere, we come across some senior campers out for a morning stroll. “You guys out for a running? Doing the one-mile loop?” We just stare at them, unsure how to answer. “No, we’re not,” is the only appropriate answer that comes out.

Marc checks his GPS again. “I think it’s just this climb again.” This climb seems to have been going on forever. And then it keeps going even more. And more. It’s getting steeper too. I have zero recollection of reading about a monster climb here in any course description. “Dude. What the fuck.” This thing does not end. I look up and only see more climbing. We keep telling ourselves that it must top out at the next bend. But every time we hit a turn, we look straight up another half-mile of trail. The cursing becomes more frequent and emphatic. Marc keeps promising that we must almost be there, but every time, I wind up heartbroken. Things start to feel impossible again. At some point, I cross the 100-mile mark without fanfare; I don’t even notice until much later. One hundred miles in 25ish hours. Fast for a 200. But a sub-24 had a nice ring to it.

After what seems like five times too long, we reach the top of Spencer Butte. (Or Spence Butt, as I’ve obviously named it.) Rather unceremoniously, we drop off the top and down towards the aid. It’s a long descent, but not nearly as long as the climb. Ragged, we pop out onto a paved road and the aid. Mile 102.5.

I sit, regroup myself a bit, eat some more food and then off we go. Marc and I patter down the paved road. In the sunlight, I don’t feel terrible, but I don’t feel good either. After two miles, we see the turn-off, a small foot trail that seems to drop precipitously off the side of the mountain.

“Is this even a trail?” Marc wonders aloud. We switchback down a very steep descent, covered with leaves. It’s a screamer. “I think the last time anyone used this trail was last year’s race,” Marc says. “Agreed.” But it feels good to be running again.

Eventually, we bottom out and snake our way towards the Lewis River. And civilization. We cross a road. We start to see cars, hear people, catch tents. After spending the last day in the backcountry, the sudden assault of other human beings is a shock to my system. People who have no idea what I’ve been through or what I still have left to do. Just people merrymaking and lazily cooking eggs over campfire and walking down to the river to get a glimpse. Their presence energizes me a little. After all, people equal an aid station nearby, right?

Marc and I hit a well-trodden path that parallels the river, running upstream. The water looks crisp. I fumble to get some orange-flavored Honey Stinger chews into me.

We must be getting close, I think to myself. Then I say it out loud. “We must be getting close, right?” Marc checks his InReach. “We have a little ways to go.” “OK.” We wind inland some, away from the water. Surely we’re headed into the aid. I ask Marc again, but he only deflects and tells me we have a few more miles to go. My optimism starts to sour. Somehow I’ve conflated the mileage of different aid stations in my head. I’m confused. The trail continues to roll. We head along some cliffs, hear a waterfall, pass more day-hikers. I grunt to acknowledge them. In my head I imagine myself to be a small slobbering hedgehog of a creature. It’s probably funnier in my head than it actually is.

Finally, after what feels more eternal than the previous eternity, we see a sign telling us that the Lewis River aid station (mile 112.1) is a few hundred feet away. There’s a series of signs, a Caribbean theme I think. I recognize a Jimmy Buffett quote, I think.

I throw myself into the folding chair. I made it. Well, I made it to halfway-to-making-it. At least I’m still in the lead, I assume, by a considerable bit. Nevertheless, I want to get out there quickly. Or, rather, I want to want to get out there quickly. It feels good to sit. It’s morning, and I’m eating chili. I change shirts. We wash my feet. I have a long debate with Peter and Erin about whether to change out my shoes to the next half-size up for swelling but ultimately decided against it. Then, I brush my teeth. Oh God. It feels so good. I’d been looking forward to that for about 100 miles now.

I’m patched together as best I can. I feel like spare parts, but at least I’m still well in the lead. With a wave, I amble out of the aid station, back down the hill and past the possible-Jimmy-Buffett quote signs, with Peter now in tow. Just as we near the turnoff to get back on route, a thick bear of a dude comes flying up the trail towards me. He flashes a smile and says hi. I’m dumbfounded.

We turn onto the trail, and then I turn to Peter. “That can’t be another runner… right?” “I don’t think so, man…” “I mean… I don’t think that was one, right?” I get a little more uneasy.

We drop down by Quartz Creek and begin following a trail that’s only slightly better than a game trail. At times, the trail turns and shoots straight up the hillside, leaving us clawing our way up, hands on knees. Then it inexplicably turns down and drops again. Then up and down and up and down, without purpose. It's beginning to feel a little maddening. Then again, I realize, it’s sort of a metaphor for this whole thing, isn’t it?

Rain begins to fall in spits. It cuts the air pleasantly, and I allow myself to enjoy it. But after a few minutes, I realize I’m starting to get soaked. No bueno. I stop to slip on my rain shell.

A few minutes later, we hear a sound over our shoulder. Within a minute, that same bear of a guy we saw coming up to Lewis River aid, goes shooting past us. “Nice job, guys!” he hollers as he sails off. Gut punch. He really was a runner after all—Wes Ritner, I learn later. Well, there goes that. I’m sad but mostly just jealous of how well he’s moving. Within two minutes he’s out of sight.

The rain subsides, and we keep up-and-downing our way along the creek. Finally, we get to a crossing point, likely the last water for another 15 miles. Peter and I stop on a jumble of rocks to filter water into our bottles. I look around at the forest, the creek, the two of us sitting there, and it feels just really pleasant. If I wasn’t 118 miles deep into a race, we could just be two friends out a little adventure hike. I savor the moment. The weight of leading the race has slid off my shoulders finally. Now I just want to finish.

We drink our fill, top off bottles and then press on. Several minutes later, as we’re picking our way through thick, razor-like thorn bushes, we hear a crashing sound behind us. It’s Ryan from before. And he’s flying too. He says a quick hello, asks if I’m OK—Geez, do I look that bad? —and then shoots off uphill.

The next few hours feel like more wandering. We claw our way uphill on the “trail” only to drop back down again moments later. It feels pointless, and I become angry with whoever designed this stupid, stupid trail.

Soft rain falls off and on, and I foolishly feel grateful for the change of pace. But it starts to chill as we make our way up to some road that’s supposed to materialize yet never does.

Pretty par for the race course. (Peter Dawson)

I’m starting to feel truly, deeply exhausted. I want proper sleep. “I’m going to lay down to sleep once the sun goes down,” I announce to Peter. I check my watch. It’s 6:28. Sundown is at 8:00. I can’t wait till 8:00.

We finally reach the dirt road high up on a ridge. It’s a mess. A combo of rains and ATVs have torn it up, in that annoying way that ATV tear things up. But I’m happy to be making progress at least. The late summer sun shines through the wet trees, bathing us in golden light. I’m starting to stumble a bit.

I keep checking my watch. 7:41. 7:46. 7:52. 7:55. 7:57. Finally, it’s 8:00. I can officially sleep, based on my totally arbitrary designation. I begin hunting for a spot to lay down, but the rain has soaked most of the ground. After another few minutes, I spot a small dry patch behind an island of trees in the middle of the trail. Sleep time! I take my pack off, make a little pillow with it and lay down. The dirt is lumpy but soft. I can’t wait to sleep.

ZzzZzzzzzZZ! Smack!

ZzzzzZZZzZZzZ! Smack!

ZZZzzZzZZZ! Smack smack smack!

Shit. Mosquitoes. Really??

I’m absolutely swarmed in mosquitoes. They assault every square inch of exposed, short-shorts flesh. I swat them in vain, convinced I’ll still sleep. My legs and arms are pricked and pierced mercilessly. Shit.

I dig into my pack and produce a long-sleeve shirt which I lay across my legs like some sad pair of pants. It obviously does not do the trick at all. I toss angrily. I give one more valiant effort to ignore the pest, but nothing is going to stop this assault. “It’s not going to work,” I tell Peter, sitting up. “Let’s keep going,” I say, defeated.

We arrive at the Council Bluff aid station (mile 131) in the dark. It’s starting to get cold, and I’m starting to feel properly wrecked. The cheery aid stations folks can tell. They plop me under a blanket near the fire and someone offers me chili. “Sure, thanks.” They bring over a paper bowl lined with a flour tortilla and then covered in a very corn-forward chili. The tortilla-under-chili thing confuses my brain, but I eat it greedily as best I can.

“Alright, I want to go soon,” I tell Peter. If I can’t sleep I might as well keep moving. Chain of Lakes is less than 10 miles away, with all my stuff and another chance at sleep.

“Hey, you need to eat some more,” a volunteer comes barreling over to me.

“I’m good, really. I just want to keep moving.”

“No man, you need to eat more food.”

“I have been eating.”

“Listen, dude, I’ve run a lot of races. I’ve DNF’d before. You need to eat more.”

Weird flex.

“I don’t. want. food. I want to go.”

“I’ll get you some M&M’s.”

“Dude. I’m good.”

He continues to brag to me about running a 36-hour 100-miler or something. I guess if he’s trying to prove his prowess at being bad at ultras, I'm convinced. Either way, he won’t let me leave, and I’m starting to get really annoyed. The other volunteers can sense the weird scene unfolding. One of the volunteers offers, “How about some Oreos?”

I can sense that this woman is just trying to help me get out of here. “Sure,” I acquiesce.

I leave annoyed, with a paper towel sleeve of three Oreos, muttering to Peter.

The next hours drift hazily at best. We roll along, just trying to bide our time until Chain of Lakes. My head cold from before has fully bloomed into something serious. I shoot snot rockets from my nose every few minutes, and it’s getting harder to breathe. Cool.

As we climb up to a paved road, there’s a promise of civilization. Road signs tell us of Takhlakh Lake and its campground nearby. I assume that it’s part of the Chain of Lakes so we must be close. Really close.

Along the sides of the road, we see white frost delicately forming. It’s frigid and exposed on the road. We slip on gloves and await the aid station’s arrival. But instead of turning down the obvious road to what had to be the aid, the flags point us past and then turn off the road entirely and into the woods. It must just be a quick jog through the woods to get to the aid on singletrack, I think. But the aid never comes. Peter looks at his watch and tells me it must just be another half mile. But that passes. And passes again. And we’re still not there. I can feel despair setting in again. I foolishly say I’ll wait to eat food till I get to the aid station because we must be so close. When too much time passes, I fully stop in the middle of the trail to eat. My bar is rock hard in the cold.

Just then, we see lights. Within minutes, Jordan Chang and his pacer on upon us. We exchange a few pleasantries, and then they scamper off. He looks awesome. I feel like shit.

Ten minutes later, the trail spits us out onto a small road. We’re there, finally. I’m energized by making it this far. One-hundred and forty miles. The aid station is dead. After all, it’s 2:00 in the morning and below freezing. Erin and Marc are excited to see us, and I happily take some soup and quesadillas from the hearty volunteers who have shaken themselves awake on my account. But my focus is sleep. Marc informs me that his puppy has somehow popped the sleeping pad. “I don’t think it’s going to matter, man,” I say, fully exhausted.

I clamber into the back of our Suburban, remove my shoes and socks, slide into the sleeping bag and tell them to get me in 20 minutes. I’m very excited for sleep.

But almost immediately, I learn that I was wrong about the sleeping pad. The trunk of the truck is cold and hard with long, plastic grooves. It’s surprisingly uncomfortable, and the knobs of my bones feel like they’re poking out everywhere. It’s also freezing. I toss and turn, trying to find some position that doesn’t suck. Mostly I’m amazed that I don’t fall asleep. I never have a problem sleeping in real life. I start actively thinking about sleeping. I have to sleep. Yeah, no shit. OK, sleep now. Nothing. OK… sleep now. Nothing. OK, sleep… NOW. This is not looking good.

Just then there’s a bang on the back window. “Hey man.” It’s Marc. “It’s been 20 minutes.”

“Wha?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Uhh, I don’t think I slept?” It comes out as a question. “Gimme another 20 minutes, OK?”

“OK.”

I return to my latest impossible task. I try to force myself to sleep for another ten or fifteen minutes, but to no avail. Finally, I give up and drag myself over the back seat of the car and spill out the door, shoeless. The gravel in the parking lot is cold and sharp on my battered, naked feet.

My crew seems a little concerned to see me. But I’ve already moved on. I’m just not going to sleep at all I guess. With a little too much effort, I slide on a pair of light tights and a jacket. I guess we’re still doing this…

When Hell Freezes Over

Marc and I give a wave and thank the volunteers before shoving off into the dark. We quickly hit some winding, descending singletrack. It feels nice to be moving well again. Soon thereafter, we hit the first of our three river crossings. It’s 3:00 am.

Bundled up for the night. Or so I thought. 

The water isn’t high, but it feels glacial. I yelp as I slip my legs in. The cold wraps up to my mid-thigh. A minute later, we emerge on the far other side, water-logged.

The next two crossing come fairly quickly and are equally unpleasant. But at least we’re done with them, I think.

The trail soon becomes a little less distinct, and it feels like we’re meanderingly aimlessly through dense forest. Thick, lush underbrush, heavy with the evening’s rain spills over the trail, and we’re doing whatever one level below bushwhacking is. We continue like this for some time, and I start to realize that I’m getting wet. The water-bedazzled foliage shows no signs of letting up, so we stop to slip on rain jackets.

I’m getting cold. Like, really cold. My teeth start chattering. Then they start chattering really loudly. My body starts shaking. Why is my body shaking? The underbrush doesn’t let up. Neither does the shaking. I start to feel like shit. Like, really not good. This is not good.

Marc pushes on in front of me. As I fall behind, I realize something is very wrong. I weakly squeak out to him, “Hey man, I’m exactly sure what hypothermia is… but I’m pretty sure I have it.”

In the moment, I couldn’t access the file in my brain labeled “hypothermia.” I couldn’t recall what it was. But it seemed like this must be it.

Marc spins around and sees me. Hypothermia confirmed. “Put on everything you have,” he instructs me. I don’t have much more in my pack, but I zip up my rain jacket completely, to that awkwardly high point that rain shells zip to. Only the round of my face peeks out. “Can you eat anything?” I pop a Gu. It’s cold and thick and caramelly and a terrible flavor.

I can barely speak through my chattering teeth. My body spasms violently. We just have to move. Help is not coming. The Klickitat aid station is mile 158.1, almost 20 miles away from Chain of Lakes. I just have to hold on till morning.

We start moving again. My body is revolting against itself. I feel frozen down to my bones. I realize my breath is escaping unused into the air, so I pull my jacket up over my mouth and breath down into it, blowing warmish arm down the front of me. I’m not sure if this is actually doing anything, I think to myself. But at this point, just the fact I’m able to come up with any sort of attempt at a solution feels like a win.

Time passes. The clattering and shaking continue. I eat an extra gel. How does this all end?

Finally, we start to see the first glimmer of morning light in the sky. We hear a bird. Then, another. Morning is coming. We couldn’t have hit the river crossings and wet underbrush at a colder time—the dead of late night—but the day was slowly clawing its way back.

Eventually, my shivering slows and finally stops. I’m still cold, but I feel like I have my body back, at least a bit. I’m still alive. What a weird, horrible dream.

In the morning light, we climb up to an empty paved road. I get that disorienting feeling of seeing something manmade again. Across the road, the trail drops into a forest. We drop down too. I find myself moving decently again. The forest feels huge. Giant redwoods tower overhead. It’s dank and dark. The air hangs heavy with the glorious smell of wet, rotting wood. Green and brown. Everything else that has happened melts away. I feel like I’m in the presence of magic. My mind tries to wrap itself around where we are, but it can’t. The only thing I think of is that we’re truly in the middle of nowhere. I suddenly become very grateful. I’m far out, way far out here.

We wind through the forest for a while before spitting out on a series of dirt logging roads. Their presence feels jarring and blasphemous.

We cross another paved road and begin to climb a hill. A very steep hill. We quickly realize that we’re starting our climb up to Elk Peak. The last test before we reach aid. The thought energizes me a little. I pop in my trusty iPod Nano loaded with music from 2012 and start power hiking.

The high dissipates after a mile, and it’s just really fucking hard again. Then I feel it, a twinge in my left heel. My Achilles. Literally. It’s my nemesis. An injury that’s haunted me for years. I instantly worry. Any weird step and it could be the end of my race. The only upside is that I can’t believe I’ve already gone 155 miles with zero problems. Look at you thinking positive!

I slow down, hoping to be kinder to my stupid leg. The climb drags on. Every time I’m sure that we’re topping out, the mountain keeps going. It’s not just false summits. It’s tiny false peaks that raise before us. First, it’s annoying. Then it’s infuriating. Then, eventually, it’s just hilarious. Our frustration gives ways to pure, hysterical acceptance of our situation. A running joke, about running.

Just as it seems that we can’t possibly hit another false peak, we see another, rocky peak rises in front of us. But this one is different. It’s an out-and-back. Our out-and-back. We scramble up the sheer, angled rock and finally arrive at our goal.

The view is breathtaking, in the truest sense of the word. We’re surrounded by it. In 360 degrees, the Cascades stretch out around us. Dense, green forests. Rocky, gray peak. Wispy, white clouds clinging to them all. I remember the course description, word-for-word. “Look out from Elk Peak at Helens, now so far in the distance. And Adams, once so far away, now so close.” My mind searches to understand what I’m looking at. Adams is right there. And Helens is so far away. I think back to days? weeks? months? ago when I was next to Helens and Adams was so far away. I’ve traveled 155 miles on my own power. How am I supposed to understand that?

Just a taste of the Cascade, savored by other runners. (Scott Rokis)

I suddenly don’t care about racing anymore. I feel like I’m floating. As we descend of the slightly-sketchy rock face of the peak, another runner and pacer amble up. They’ll pass us on the way down to Klickitat. Oh well.

We bomb down to the aid, getting passed on the way in, of course. I can’t wait to get my still-soaked shoes off for a short respite. They’ve been drenched since the river crossings. Finally, we pop out on a small dirt road in a break from the trees. It’s startling how bright and warm it is. I'm not sure what time of day it is, but it feels like mid-afternoon. But maybe it’s not.

A very nice woman with a thick Eastern-Bloc accent attends to me. We explain the hypothermia and soaked feet, and they lay me up a reclining camp chair. A medic introduces himself and starts to work on my feet. They’re mushy and soft, with deep trenches running through them. He rubs them down with alcohol and sets up next to a gas-powered heat lamp. In the openness of the harsh sun, the heater feels vulgar and awkward.

I sit for longer than I want. But I don’t care. I’ve just been out there for 20 miles. And I have another daunting 20 to go before I see my crew and gear again. Jordan comes in (He must have slept somewhere. Lucky.) He leaves before me. The Eastern-Bloc woman offers to rub down my legs. I don’t particularly want it, but she seems very into it. She spends a lot of time on my calves. It’s getting weird.

After what feels like half an hour, we finally gather our things to leave. My feet are dry now, but despite our best efforts, my shoes are still woefully waterlogged. The moment I slip them back on, I feel the squish. Great. All that’s left to do is keep moving.

We thank everyone for their hospitality and slide off into the forest. The dark, foggy forest has given way to a bright, open one. Hyped on the aid station stop, I feel good, and we start to crank again. We roll through the hills, underneath the ancient pines. Things are looking up.

That’s when the mosquitoes hit. Not just a swarm. A cloud. They descend on us, thick and swirling. Never in my life have I seen anything like this. I swat them away, and I feel like I’m batting at seagulls. They nip at us. We shriek and try to outrun them. It’s no use. They’re everywhere.

After all these miles, it finally dawns on me: This race never gives you a break. As soon as you start feeling good at any point, you’ll suddenly get blindsided by some totally unforeseen thing that smacks you across the face and leaves you crying foul.

“I’ve got some wipes!” shouts Marc. Moments later, he produced two individually wrapped Off! wipes. God bless him. I’ve never seen mosquito wipes before, but I decide right then and there that they’re going in every race pack I ever carry from now on. We tear them open and frantically wipe our entire bodies down with them. Almost instantly the mosquitoes disappear. It’s a miracle.

Mosquito-free, we’re now left to make our way through the forest. The trail begins to wind up and down steep hillsides in seeming random fashion. I feel lucky to have Marc with me. I’d hate to be out here without him. I tell him that. “This is really remote, man. Like, really remote. If you got in trouble out here—like serious trouble—you’d be fucked.” I say this knowing we have still have 15 miles to the Twin Sister aid. I try imagining being out here without a pacer, but I can’t.

It’s hot now. I remember something about how the description said there was no water in this section. Marc pulls out his InReach and spies a small lake just off-trail. We make a small detour to refill our bottles, but mostly to just dump water over our heads. It’s a rare moment of pleasure.

It’s late afternoon, I think. Things start to get really fuzzy. I’ve now been up for two and a half days. No sleep. Hypothermia. A bad cold. Other stuff, probably. I can’t think straight. I just need to be at the aid station. It’s hours away. My waterlogged feet feel like I’m stepping on shards of glass with every step.

Marc is talking, but I sense myself snapping at him. Nothing’s funny anymore. Or fun. All I feel is the need to be somewhere else. I snap at Marc again. For a moment, I have clarity. I pull out of myself and see what’s happening.

“Hey dude, I’m really sorry I’m being a jerk. I’m literally in survival mode right now.”

I realize I’m no longer in control. My body has taken over. We’re in full “flight” mode. The only thing that Andy Pearson—the organism, the collection of cells and DNA—cares about right now is pure survival. I’ve lost agency over myself. The animal is taking over.

We start breathing through in through our nose… out through our nose… in through our nose… out through the nose. It’s loud and raspy. I realize we sound insane. But it’s the only thing that’s taking our mind off the pain in our feet, any bit. In through the nose… out through the nose… in through the nose… out through the nose… It’s working, a little. We’re running at full speed now. But I’m also feeling dizzy. I’m not sure how much longer we can keep this up. But at this point, we don’t care. We just need to not be here right now. In through the nose… out through the nose… in through the nose… out through the nose…

After about 30 minutes, I realize we’re actually going to pass out, and I pull on the brakes. We slow to a walk for a bit. My brain comes back online a little bit. I’m back in control.

“Hey Marc, I just had a pleasant thought.” “What’s that?” “At least I never have to run Badwater now.”

The afternoon wears on. We work our way through the forest. The aid station feels impossibly far away. At one point, Marc takes out his InReach and says we’re not too far away.

The landscape opens up, gets a little rocky. I’m beginning to teeter.

Another swarm of mosquitoes descends on us. Our Off! wipes must have worn off, and Marc doesn’t have any more. We pull out the old used ones he stuffed in his pocket and try to rub ourselves down again, but it doesn’t seem to work. We just have to run faster. Marc takes off. I can’t keep up. A massive hill rises in front of us. I can’t do it. Marc’s gone. Fully gone. He’s bounded up the hill. I’m at the bottom of it.

I suddenly feel alone. Utterly alone. I can’t believe he just left me. Despair floods in. I’m angry at him. I know it’s not fair. He’s out in the middle of nowhere getting his ass munched on mosquitoes like me, while he clocks 50-something miles to support my ill-advised misadventure. But it doesn’t matter. I feel so utterly fucking alone.

I trudge uphill. A hill that seems to never end. I sit down on a rock in protest. I can’t move. I wait a few minutes and then pick myself up again and trudge off. I make it to the top of the hill but don’t see Marc. A few more minutes, and I find him, waiting for me. He apologizes for jetting; he was just trying to get out of the mosquitoes. It’s total fair, and I push down my anger. He’s out here for me.

We move on. The sun sets. We’re back in the forest. Marc’s been with me since the middle of the night to the next day now to the next night again. And we’re just trying to go 37 miles. Damn.

We near the aid station. Or at least we think so. We’ve taken a turn-off, which should be a sign. I’m starting to get really wobbly. The lack of sleep, the distance, everything is compounded. I go through periods where I’m just not there. It’s something akin to blacking out. I’m coming full unraveled. My have never been in so much pain. I don’t actually know how I’m going to take each new step. I black out again momentarily.

The trail become narrow in places with tight ledges and drop-offs below. I think about how I’m glad to have a pacer and how it’s good I’m not super messed up right now. I wobble again. Maybe I am messed up. I can’t tell. I black out again. Probably. I’m not sure. I’m not sure I can finish this thing.

Finally, we turn a corner and see the aid below. Holy shit. We’re here.

I stumble into the Twin Sisters Aid Station (mile 177.5) feeling like I’m floating. Everything is surreal. But I’m seated in a camping chair. A hamburger materializes in my hands. I can’t believe how good I suddenly feel. I’m not running anymore. I’m safe. My brain and body relax. I start cracking jokes with aid station people.

That’s when someone pops his head into the tent. “Welcome, welcome! Tell me what’s going on.” He grabs my arm. “You got a hamburger, great. What’s going on? My name’s Mark. I’m going to help you out.” He grins widely. His breath smells of whiskey. I realize that he’s totally hammered. “We’re going to take good care of you. Let’s get those shoes off and see those feet.”

He wrenches wrestles my shoes off. My soles are a horror shoe. White, puckered, fleshy, with deep crevices running through. “I’m so excited to have you here!” Mark the Medic twitters. “I wait all year to come up here and help you crazies patch up your feet.” He’s an odd bird, but very sweet, and I don’t care. Anyone willing to take care of my 180-mile feet is an angel. Mark and his assistant go to work.

They do all sorts of things to my feet. What? I don’t know, but it seems like magic. I just huddle under my blankets and munch on my hamburger. It feels weirdly nice to be fawned over like this. I’m warm and safe. Pleasure radiates from my brain.

Masticated feet are hilarious! (Peter Dawson)

Not so funny anymore. Look at how white my feet are. (Erin Garnder Dawson)

We talk about my hypothermia, and Mark tells me that my body was probably just so worn out it couldn’t produce its own heat anymore. That was almost 20 hours ago at this point, but obviously I was still compromised. On top of that, my head cold is full blown now. Snot and other things are pouring out of me, and my voice fades in and out barely able to escape my throat. If John Mayer’s girlfriend’s body was a wonderland, mine is the opposite of that.

“I need to sleep,” I tell them. Somehow, this time, I’m pretty sure it won’t be a problem. Mark says they have a tent all set up for me with a cot. He and Peter help me up and lead me off into the dark. They deposit me into a small tent with a cot and sleeping bag waiting. “Here,” Mark says. “Wrap yourself around this.” He hands me a Nalgene full of hot water. “It’ll help bring your core temperature up.” I put it in the bag with me. It’s very warm. I’m instantly worried that I’m going to pee myself, but don’t think much past that.

“This is so cool,” I tell Mark and my crew who are staring down at me on the cot. They look inquisitively. “I’ve never been this messed up in a race before. Like, I’ve always seen people laying on cots and stuff. But now I’m actually getting to be one of them. It’s never happened before. This is so cool.” They laugh, knowing I’m insane. I probably am.

I tell them to get me up in 90 minutes. They leave. For a moment I worry that I’m not going to be able to fall asleep yet again.

Suddenly I slip into inky, warm blackness.

Resurrection

I sit up straight in bed. Time to run! I think excitedly. I look down at my watch. It’s been exactly 89 minutes since they left me in the tent. Just then, I hear a ziiiiip at the door. Peter pokes his head in. “Hey man, you alive?” “Yeah man,” I grin. “I’m alive.”

It’s turned dark outside. I hobble out of the tent, happy to have not peed myself. Back in the aid station tent, I feel like a totally new person. Mark the Medic checks my feet again, giving them a once-over. “Look at those things! Beautiful!” he exclaims. “Almost good as new!” I had to give it to him, they did almost look like they hadn’t spent the last 20 hours soaking in water.

Twenty-nine miles left. Easy-peasy. I gather my new gear, scarf another half a hamburger. During my downtime, I’ve managed to slip to tenth place. I’m just happy to be alive, so I take my sweet-ass time.

Finally, I’m ready. Peter’s ready. We wave a merry goodbye to everyone, and we’re off.

It’s a 2.7-mile trek back to the main Klickitat Trail, all uphill. I run it. I don’t just feel good. I feel great. Holy shit, I think. We cross paths with a few runners coming downhill to the aid, and I cheerily say hello. I even start to drop Peter a little. Maybe it’s because of my 180-mile warmup. Either way, we top out much more quickly than I expect.

Back up top, we fly down the trail, catching up about everything that’s transpired in the last 20 hours or so. The night is cool—not cold—and we soon feel pleasantly warm inside our clothes. After a few miles, we hit the short out and back to Pompey Peak. We climb the switchbacks up to the bald rock peak. Everywhere around us, we can sense the mountains and the tree, and we joke that it might be a lovely view. But in truth, it is. The sky is an explosion of stars above us. We linger a moment, savoring the rewards of our deep labor.

Another runner takes in the night sky on top of Pompey. (Scott Rokis)

“It’s all downhill from here,” I tell Peter as we drop off the top. And it’s true. The trail eventually turns downward, and we begin descending quickly. Just as I feel like maybe I’m home free, we come to a massive downed tree laying across the trail. I groan with annoyance, but in the grand scheme, it’s not so bad.

I detach my/Marc’s Leki poles, pull myself up and top, reattach the poles and then use them to hop down on the other side. We continue on. A minute later, we come to another tree. Argh. I do it again.

This time, when I clear the tree, I see another one just a dozen feet again. And then there’s another. And another. It’s an absolute mess out here. Fallen trees everywhere. Fallen trees that fell over more fallen trees. Each time, I have to detach my poles to free my hands to climb over. Each time, I grunt. Each time, it sucks more and more.

I don’t remember anything about this in the course description, I tell Peter. But here we are.

“I didn’t really expect to be doing fucking parkour at mile 185.”

Any happiness that I was riding before has been totally sucked out of me. I’m annoyed and miserable again. Then, I realize that I’m annoyed and miserable. I pull out of myself to see what’s happening. I remember my revelation from earlier. The moment you feel good out here, the race punches you in the face. No, I think. I’m not going to give in. I fight against the anger—not super convincingly—but I fight nonetheless. I don’t let it take hold.

It lasts for maybe a mile and a half. (It’s hard to have any objective understanding of distance at this point.) It’s awful. But I don’t give in to the anger. What’s the Yoda quote? “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Well, I was already suffering so no point in throwing the other three in, right?

Eventually, the trees thin out and the trail flattens. We emerge from the forest into… green. Just all green.

We’re in a green tunnel. Green grass underneath, overgrown green grass to our left and right, green trees beyond that. We’re on what appears to be an old road, now reclaimed by nature. There’s a slight downhill grade so we just roll with it. It’s nice to be getting easy miles in again. It’s also, just really… green. It’s all we can talk about. Our headlamps enhance the strange tunnel-ness of it all. I use it as fuel, ticking my speed upwards. Time to get this shit done.

The green tunnel seems to last forever. I’m running my face off. After a while, the monotony of the speed and vegetation creates mental drag. I occasionally stop to walk for a minute or two before picking the pace up again.

After an hour(?), we see something in the distance. Something manmade. It must be the aid station. As we near it, it gets smaller and smaller. Once we’re finally on it, I realize it’s a table stocked with bottles upon bottles of tequila. Gag. “Oh, this is the surprise that Candice promised out here.” I think back to the pre-race briefing where the RD hinted that she might have a surprise out here for us. For some reason, I figured it’d be someone in a bigfoot suit to scare us. I’m momentarily grateful because I don’t think I could handle that shit right now. Either way, there are a lot of nonsensical things about this sport, but ultrarunners’ fascination with taking a shot of tequila late in the race I will never understand. Needless to say, we do not partake.

On the upside, I assume this is a sign that the aid station is close. Ten more green minutes later, we round a bend, and the Owen’s Creek Aid Station (193.5 miles) comes into view. It’s all flood lights, heat lamps, and sizzling bacon. There’s also another—shall I say, “difficult”—runner already there. His family stands around him, trying to appease his whims. He snaps at them, complaining about stuff. I’m just happy that it looks like I’ll be moving up a place.

I want to get out there fast. I grab a plate of eggs and bacon—because, fuck it—and coffee—because, also fuck it. I finish half of everything and then declare it’s time to go.

The End

Thirteen miles to the finish. I check my watch again. It’s around 4:30 in the morning. All day my goals have been slipping. From CR to winning to sub-60 to just staying alive. But now with 7:00am on the horizon—meaning a 70-hour finish—I have a something to shoot for again. It’s going to be close though. I check my race plan, just 385 feet of elevation gain. Hell yeah.

Peter and I barrel down the gravel-and-rock road. It’s two miles to the paved road and the final leg of my journey. We make it to the road and turn left. Pavement. Civilization. Weird again.

As we pound the road, we can feel the earth starting to slowly awaken. Sunlight yawns and gently shakes the slumber from its eyes. Clouds of mist billow and rise from meadows next to us. Sleepy cows stare back at us, suspiciously. I feel alive myself.

The road is remote and desolate. There’s no shoulder whatsoever, so we find ourselves hugging the sides, hoping no one comes barreling around a curve. It’s Monday morning, after all, I think to myself. What will someone on their way to work think if they see my bag of bones shambling along the road? And then I think, Holy shit. Monday morning. People are going to work.

But I have a deadline to hit. I can smell the barn. I’m cranking. In fact, I start to pick up speed. I feel like I’m flying. I feel like I’m running faster than anyone’s ever run before. I’m in a full-out sprint.

Just then, I realize there are mile markers along the roadside. Great. I can see just how fast I’m going. I hit a mile marker and note the time. A few minutes later, I see the next one. I check my watch again. Well that can’t be right. Ten and a half minutes? I note the time again. The next mile marker comes. Eleven minutes?? I feel like I’m running faster than I’ve ever run in my life. Really, I’m running 11-minute miles. Cool.

All things considered, it’s still pretty fast. I guess.

And it was because a few minutes later, we come upon another figure gimping along ahead of us. He’s listing ever-so-slightly to his right side, as all ultrarunners like to do at the end of a race. And he’s alone. Ouch.

“Hey.” He greets us. “Hey. Are we on the right side of the river?” Oh boy.

“Yeah. This is right.”

“Oh, ‘cuz I thought we were supposed to be over on that side.” He points across to the opposite bank, far away, which has just disappeared from view in a jumble of forest.

“Well, that’s where we’re going. But we’re going to get up to another road and then turn to take a bridge over it.” I can’t believe I can recall all the details of the course three days in. Wish I had remembered something about all those downed trees…

Our friend is still confused, but at least he’s moving. So we bid him adieu and press on. Eighth place.

I like the number eight. That sounds good to me.

We pick our speed up again and start flying (relatively speaking). Eventually, the road passes a cluster of house, barns, and garages. More civilization. A good sign.

We turn onto a more major road. Another good sign. I can see the map in my head. I’m so close. So close. Holy shit I’m close.

At some point, Peter tells me he has to stop to take care of “some business” but tells me to keep going, and he’ll catch up.

Suddenly I’m alone again.

But it’s a good alone. Just me and the countryside. I pass more houses. Front yard set up in permanent yard sales. A sign for a farmer’s market. Tractors. A truck rumbles past.

Finally, I see a bridge. I know this bridge. I saw this bridge three days ago. I’m close.

I cross the bridge and the river below. I’m close.

A few hundred more feet, and I’m at an intersection. Of a highway. With gas stations and cars and stuff. More civilization. It’s all surreal.

I cross the highway and follow the flags onto a smaller backroad than curves to parallel the highway.

This is it. The home stretch. All alone, I think back over the last few days. How many has it been? What is today? I think back over everything that’s transpired. The moments of despair. The moments of elation. My crew. The mountains. The out-there-ness. The volcano. The forests. The hypothermia. The doubt. The quesadillas. (Oh, the quesadillas.) The shoes. The changes within myself. The miles. How many has it been?

I savor every step now. I will not be back here again soon.

There’s a gentle curve in the road, and the high school comes into view. A minute later, I find myself passing through its fence, into the parking lot. I see cars and trucks and piles of gear scattered everywhere and being sorted. It hit me how much goes into this. Not just my journey but everyone’s.

I follow a small sidewalk, through a short chain-link fence, and suddenly I’m on the track. It’s soft underfoot. Almost disarmingly so. It’s black. It has long white lines that I follow. I hear people cheer from the shanty town of awnings across the field, at the finish line. The finish line.

I take in everything. The pine trees. The brown, parched grass on the infield. The sky. The electrical wires. A pair of crows perched above. My mind floats inside my skull.

Smelling the bar, hard. (Scott Rokis)

Moments away. (Marc Laveson)

I turn the final corner and look down the barrel of the finish, now populated with the screaming skeleton crew of a crowd.

There’s nothing left inside me except joy. Pure, vibrating joy. I’m swimming through it. My face already hurts from grinning.

And then, I’m done. I cross the finish line. It’s been 69 hours, 29 minutes, and 5 seconds. 206.5 miles—call it 208 with the sabotage. I’m done. It’s done.

Done. (Scott Rokis)

Like, really done. (Scott Rokis)

What running 208 miles feels like looks like. (Scott Rokis)

After The Party, It’s The After-Party

I lean over my poles as people swoop in to congratulate me. Candice is there. We exchange a few blurry impressions of the course. I tell her it’s the most beautiful course I’ve ever been on. Someone else asks if I want to eat anything. I never want to eat anything right after a race. I decline. “Maybe a grilled cheese?” she offers. “That sounds suspiciously like a quesadilla,” I shoot back. Everyone laughs. I laugh because I’ll never eat another quesadilla again in my entire life.

They sit me down in a camping chair and cover me with a blanket. I suddenly become acutely aware of how badly I stink.

What the feeling of three days of running looks like.

Fat feet. (Toenails previously removed.)

Our listing, confused road friend appears a short time later. After lingering at the finish line the requisite amount, I’m ready to get into a hotel room and shower. We pile into the massive Suburban. With the enclosed space, I once again become acutely aware of how badly I smell. I apologize to my crew. I’ve put them through enough already.

The sun is fully up now. It’s warm and aggressive. I’m standing in the parking lot of a hotel I booked months ago. I get in the room throw my bags down and slump into the shower. After 20 minutes(?)—time is meaningless—I get out, throw on clothes, and check my phone. There’s a message from Ethan Newberry on it. “Dude, congrats on the finish!!! Do you want to be on Ginger Runner Live tonight?” Sure, that sounds like an intense way to end this whole thing.

I exit my room out into the harshness of the late morning sun. I need food now. In cut-off shorts and flip-flops, I stagger down to the highway and follow it for a half mile until I come to Packwood, Washington’s finest—and also only—grocery store. Inside I proceed to buy the most insane things I can find. A platter of bright red colored Chinese pork of some sort. A bag of spicy pickles. Cheese sticks. A bag of cheese-flavored potato chips. A pint of cookie dough ice cream. A six pack of some local IPA. My only solace is that I’m probably not the strangest thing to blow through this roadside grocery store.

This is the kind of quality advertising the have in Packwood. A picture of elk fighting with a Mountain Dew logo over it and a picture of another elk with a Pepsi logo over it with the tagline “Delivering the fun.”

As I get to the register to check out, the cashier asks me how I’m doing. As I go to answer, I simply croak. A “…” Nothing comes out. A weak noise escapes my mouth, like a squeaking, frightened animal. I try again. Again, nothing comes out. I smile. She smiles back at me. It’s awkward.

The cold I’d been experiencing all race has finally fully manifested itself. Somehow between the stress of the miles and the illness, my vocal cords have packed up and gone home. I’m totally incapable of any sort of speech. I simply croak a “thanks” and retreat back to the hotel, where I proceed to feast and take a second bath again because, hey, I earned it.

The hotel after every 100-miler or more is always a blur. This is no exception. I knock back a beer and turn the Discovery Channel on. At some point, the Deadliest Catch lulls me to sleep.

I wake two hours later. The pain in my legs is all-consuming. I test my voice again. Nothing. I have to be on Ginger Runner Live in three hours. I brew some tea in the hotel coffee maker and add some lemon and honey that I’ve procured somewhere.

After two cups of tea, I venture out of my room. I hate sleeping.

It’s mid-afternoon now. I hobble down to the Blue Spruce Saloon. Anything called a saloon automatically has my vote. The enter and find a vast expanse of a place. But everyone is huddled around the curved bar at the front. Who patronizes the Blue Spruce Saloon in Packwood, Washington, at 3:00 in the afternoon on a Monday? Old people. RV types. Locals too. They’re all in there getting hammered off $3 Coors Lights. It’s fascinating.

I try to order a Stardust IPA—the most expensive and obviously douchiest—thing on the menu. The woman working the bar can’t understand a word I say. Mostly because I’m not really saying words. Just sounds. It’s instantly embarrassing again. I feel like the weirdo in a bar of retirees getting schlitzed at 3:00 in the afternoon. To be fair, I guess I am the weirdo who just ran 208 miles.

I enjoy my beer and the general feeling of not-running before hobbling back to the hotel.

At around 6:00 we start Ginger Runner Live. I’ve now slept a collective 3.5 hours in 3.5 days. Groovy.

I always love talking to Ethan and Kim, and it’s fun to be able to talk about the race with such fresh, raw emotions. At one point, Ethan turning to Kim and says, “I don’t think we’ve ever had someone on the show who just finished a race while the race was still going on.” It’s true. People are still out there running. God bless them. I’m not.

A few times, my voice goes out entirely and is replaced by what can only be described as a death rasp. At least it adds to the drama of the whole thing, I think.

But I make it through. After a really fun interview, I sign off. Now there is nothing left to do but let the sounds of the Discovery Channel lull me to sleep once more.

Now, I am finally, officially done.

I ate so many bowls of free Fruit Loops at breakfast the next morning.

And I enjoyed a Bigfoot beer beneath Mt Rainer.

Looking Back

Running 200+ miles is, without a doubt, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It broke me down. It made me dig deeper than I’ve ever had to. It asked everything of me.

I got exactly what I wanted out of it. It scared me. Not just “scared” me. It scared me on a deep, animal level.

When I finished I said I would never do that again. In fact, I said no human being should ever do that. It was dreadful.

But it was also unimaginable. Unimaginably beautiful. Unimaginably remote. Unimaginably brutal. Unimaginably whole.

I came closer to understanding own mortality and my own immortality in a single event. I came closer to touching the universe and everything in it.

The more time I have to reflect back on my experience, the more deeply affecting I realize it was.

I believe.

[vinayv224]

Trump is ignoring his top health advisers over 2020 election fears

Trump speaks at the White House on Monday. | Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The US is halfway through Trump’s “15 days to slow the spread,” and he’s already pushing to end it — even with coronavirus cases on the rise.

On day seven of the White House’s “15 days to slow the spread” initiative, President Donald Trump started talking about sending Americans back to work — an idea at odds with advice from his top health advisers.

In a tweet on Sunday, the president said in all capital letters: “AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!”

On Monday he retweeted similar opinions as news began to leak that behind the scenes Trump was sharing this view with his advisers, and one of his aides appeared on Fox News to say the same thing.

WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2020

Trump’s eagerness to end social distancing was also a major topic of his marathon news conference on Monday evening. He said he plans to reopen certain parts of the economy “not long after” the 15-day initiative ends, even if his medical and public health advisers don’t agree with him.

“The doctors, if it was up to the doctors, they’d say ‘let’s shut down the entire world,’” Trump said at one point, adding at another that the shutdown “causes other problems, and maybe it causes much bigger problems than the problem we’re talking about now.”

.@kaitlancollins: Did any of the doctors on your team endorse easing the federal guidelines? TRUMP: "Not endorsed." pic.twitter.com/azN4bVbg2Z

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 23, 2020

The point of the 15-day initiative was to encourage social distancing to “slow the curve” of the virus and save lives. But as of Monday, there was no sign that the pandemic was slowing. In fact, outbreaks in America are even outpacing some of the worst-hit countries in the world.

Worse, most experts, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, Trump’s most-prominent expert on his coronavirus task force, warn that the pandemic will get worse before it gets better. Experts fear that talk of encouraging people to get back to their normal routines quickly could hamper efforts to slow the pandemic — or even encourage its spread.

Trump, however, indicated on Monday that he thinks people have already learned the necessary lessons — even though he was speaking on the day after single-day coronavirus-related deaths in the country broke 100 for the first time ever.

"We learned so much discipline" -- Trump is talking like the coronavirus pandemic is in the rear view mirror, when in fact America just broke 100 deaths in a single day for the first time. pic.twitter.com/pnmFzN1QxW

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 23, 2020

There is a minority opinion — one expressed in particular by economists associated with Trump — that resuming some economic activity after a 15-day period is a worthwhile risk to take. But even the most-aggressive argument emerging from that camp doesn’t compare to Trump’s willingness to send people back to work en masse. It’s clear that with the Dow plummeting and unemployment claims spiking, Trump fears an economic disaster ahead of the 2020 election could doom his prospects. (Trump even posted a retweet suggesting his idea is directly tied to the election.)

Trump’s sudden swing from calling for a 15-day day crackdown, to doubting the science it’s based on less than half-way through, is emblematic of his reckless approach to combating the coronavirus. All signs point to the crisis getting worse — and the man in charge is putting his own political interests before the lives of Americans.

Trump is getting frustrated with the advice of public health experts

On Monday, the president followed up on his previous night’s tweet by retweeting a number of accounts with sketchy handles like @steph93065 that urged him to get people back to work — not only for the sake of the economy, but for his reelection hopes as well.

“15 days. Then we isolate the high risk groups and the rest of us get back to work before it’s all over for everyone!! #Landslide2020,” wrote @FedupMil in a post that was retweeted by the president.

On Monday morning came a slew of news reports that Trump is “itching to scale back social distancing after 15-day period,” as CNN put it. The New York Times reported that “at the White House, in recent days, there has been a growing sentiment that medical experts were allowed to set policy that has hurt the economy, and there has been a push to find ways to let people start returning to work.”

Then came a Fox News appearance from top White House economics adviser Larry Kudlow in which Kudlow echoed points Trump made on Twitter.

“The president is right: The cure can’t be worse than the disease, and we’re gonna have to make some difficult trade-offs,” Kudlow said. “I spoke with the president about this very subject late last evening.”

KUDLOW teases that Trump will try to send people back to work next week: "We can't shut in the economy... POTUS is right: The cure can't be worse than the disease, & we're gonna have to make some difficult trade-offs... I spoke w/ POTUS about this very subject late last evening." pic.twitter.com/OV02aLFGxh

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 23, 2020

It’s understandable that the White House is eager to reestablish a sense of normalcy. Experts are now saying that the ongoing curtailment of economic life could produce unemployment levels worse than the Great Depression and an unprecedented shrinkage of GDP.

Trump would obviously have a hard time making a case for his reelection amid that sort of economic carnage. But to the extent he cares about American lives more than his own political future, the responsible thing to do is wait and see — at least until there’s some semblance of improvement, not as cases mount.

The number of US coronavirus cases continues to rise

The whole point of the 15-day program is to prevent the health care system from being overwhelmed by “flattening the curve” of coronavirus cases. But as the following chart indicates, the number of confirmed cases in the US continues to grow at an exponential rate.

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There’s no indication that the number of cases will plateau or start coming down before next week. On the contrary, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday that “it’s only getting worse, and in fact April and May are going to be a lot worse.”

It’s true that many of the US cases are concentrated in especially hard-hit regions like New York City, the San Francisco bay area, and Washington state. One might view that as contributing to an argument for the resumption of normal social and economic life in relatively better-off states like West Virginia or the Dakotas.

But the experience of Hong Kong, where the coronavirus seemed to be under control until a relaxation of social distancing resulted in a second outbreak and even more stringent measures, demonstrates the risk involved in prematurely encouraging people to go back to gyms, bars, and other places where the virus can spread. And the idea there’s much to be gained by reopening businesses in places like Grand Forks, North Dakota while San Francisco remains under lockdown and hospitals are at the verge of overflowing in New York is dubious at best.

Furthermore, while US coronavirus testing capacity has increased in recent days, the country still lags far behind others in terms of tests performed relative to the population — meaning we still don’t have a clear picture of how widely the virus has already spread.

Resuscitating the economy requires getting the virus under control

In the end, the choice Trump seems to think he faces between continuing strict social distancing measures meant at getting the coronavirus under control or ending them in hopes of stopping the economic collapse is a false one.

The latter can’t happen without the former, and the former can’t happen until the number of cases levels off, while more vigorous testing gives experts the tools they need to develop a better picture of how widely the virus has already spread.

Which is to say, even if you care about economic activity as the only value here, it's really not clear that anything like "business as usual" is even a possibility in the midst of a roaring pandemic, even if you let everything stay open.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) March 23, 2020

Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiology professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and director of Harvard’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, told the Washington Post that “every well-informed infectious epidemiologist I know of” thinks that the best way forward in the short term is more restriction, not less.

“We haven’t yet even seen signs that the growth [in coronavirus cases] is slowing, much less reversing. Now is the time to tighten restrictions on contacts that could transmit the virus, not loosen them,” Lipsitch said. “If we let up now we can be virtually certain that health care will be overwhelmed in many if not all parts of the country. This is the view of every well-informed infectious epidemiologist I know of.”

State governors have more authority than Trump to keep people at home, but what Trump says matters. For instance, the national standardization of social distancing measures throughout the country (with some notable exceptions, like beaches in Florida) came shortly after Trump stopped downplaying the gravity of the situation just over a week ago and embraced the “15 days” program.

At the very least, the president should wait until the outbreak is under control before trying to give people hope, because the trajectory of the numbers indicate there’s no good basis for doing so beyond short-term political self-interest. In fact, the quickest route back to some sense of normalcy is to stop the spread of the virus by continuing to encourage people to stay home, even if we have to do so for more than 15 days.

The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.

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[caveartfair]

The 10 Best Booths at Art Basel in Hong Kong

Image of Art Basel, Hong Kong, 2019 courtesy of Art Basel.

On Monday and Tuesday evening, the international art world filtered through Hong Kong to attend openings at the increasingly global set of galleries the city has to offer. The Pedder Building alone is home to Pearl Lam (Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore) and Hanart (Hong Kong), as well as numerous American imports (Gagosian, Lehmann Maupin)—a microcosm, perhaps, of the seventh edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong, which opened to VIPs on Wednesday across two floors of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center.

This year, Art Basel in Hong Kong features 242 galleries from 35 countries and territories. “As good as the shows are in the West, at this standard, none of them have this kind of global diversity,” said Marc Spiegler, global director of Art Basel. Exhibitors hailing from São Paulo to Seoul, Calcutta to Melbourne, courted new collectors and coped with varying degrees of jet lag. Spiegler noted that he’s seen major changes in presentations since the fair began in the 2010s. “This is a discerning market,” he offered. “In the beginning, perhaps people thought that they could empty out their inventory.…The same quality is expected by the collectors as they would see at other shows, and the galleries meet that—or they don’t, at their own peril.” Below, we share highlights from the fair’s best booths.

Société

Discoveries Section, Booth 1C49

With works by Lu Yang

Installation view of Société’s booth at Art Basel in Hong Kong, 2019. Courtesy of Art Basel.

If you’re yearning for sensory overload, head directly to Société’s solo presentation of the young Chinese artist Lu Yang. For the fair, Lu created four films (all 2019) featuring four different characters—half-robots, half-gods—which play on elevated screens, while lightboxes in the same style hang on the walls. All of the work is shown within a gridded, silver armature with neon lights. The gallery’s Marius Wilms noted that the “futuristic” installation is what the artist calls “a cyber altar.”

Lu’s videos aren’t just visually noisy: Stick around and you’ll hear shouts and grunts emanating from the screens. Plastic, donut-shaped seats beckon viewers to watch the unfolding drama—or, as Wilms put it, “the whole epileptic thing.” The booth’s crowd of fairgoers suggested an eager audience for the work, and the gallery sold two lightboxes within the first few hours of the opening.

Pifo Gallery

Insights Section, Booth 3D29

With works by Zhang Yu

Installation view of Pifo Gallery’s booth at Art Basel in Hong Kong, 2019. Courtesy of Art Basel.

Pifo’s booth features two elevated platforms lined with long sheets of paper. Half-filled cups of tea sit on top, in pristine rows. On each day of the fair, at around 4 p.m., artist Zhang Yu will pour the tea onto the paper, creating circular brown stains. When the tea dries, the artist’s new artwork is complete. (Each work is priced at $135,000.)

Various finished versions cover the booth’s walls: The soft splotches evoke tree rings, their consistency a testament to the artist’s carefully honed spilling methods. “We consider him a minimalist artist,” said gallery director Sophia Wang, noting that Zhang wants to create the most neutral effect possible on paper. His tool of choice—tea—allows him to eschew more traditional media while invoking Chinese culture.

Galerie Max Hetzler

Galleries Section, Booth 3D07

With works by Albert Oehlen and Rebecca Warren

As the art world reels over the news of Gagosian’s record-breaking online sale of Albert Oehlen’s 1988 painting Untitled for more than $4.7 million, the artist’s future market prospects are looking good. And that bodes well for Max Hetzler, who brought a series of brand-new Oehlen paintings to Art Basel in Hong Kong. All untitled and dated 2010/2018, they feature busy arrangements of colorful gestures and smears against stark white backdrops. Hung against the booth’s white walls, the paintings’ negative spaces fade neatly into their surroundings.

In the center of the booth, British artist Rebecca Warren’s totemic, hand-painted bronze sculptures emerge from white blocks. Resembling lumpy poles with uneven paint jobs (and one bright-blue pom-pom), they evoke the feminist forms of Louise Bourgeois while pushing into stranger, messier terrain. One particularly compelling work, entitled The Nude (2014–19), looks like it has a full breast at its center.

Empty Gallery

Insights Section, Booth 3C43

With works by Tishan Hsu

Installation view of Empty Gallery’s booth at Art Basel in Hong Kong, 2019. Courtesy of Art Basel.

Tishan Hsu’s mixed-media work Feed Forward (1989), on view at Empty Gallery’s booth, features a wheeled stand with an upside-down bottle of Pepsi, hooked up like an intravenous drip to a wall-mounted silkscreen. The print features shadowy lines resembling an X-ray of a rib cage; the piece’s final component is a red phone mounted on the wall. The strange, humorous juxtapositions ask viewers to reconsider the relationship between art and the body. Such haunting corporeality is central to many of Hsu’s works in the booth. And the artist, who’s been exhibiting since the early 1980s, is enjoying a minor resurgence.

“He was really active in the New York art scene back in the ’80s,” explained Empty Gallery’s Ching Ching Cheung. “I guess it was a bit too avant-garde for people to understand.…He just felt misunderstood.” Hsu distanced himself from the art world and began teaching at Sarah Lawrence College (and continued there until retiring recently). Hsu also has a solo presentation on view at Empty Gallery’s Hong Kong space, and his work is included in an exhibition space connected with Adrian Cheng’s new major development, Victoria Dockside. The artist hasn’t achieved so much concentrated attention since around 1990, when the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Katonah Museum of Art, and a series of other institutions featured him in their shows. The art world seems to be decanting Hsu’s practice, letting it breathe after years on the shelf.

47 Canal

Galleries Section, Booth 3C26

With works by Michele Abeles, Antoine Catala, Danielle Dean, Josh Kline, Amy Lien & Enzo Camacho, Elle Pérez, Trevor Shimizu, Stewart Uoo, Cici Wu, and Anicka Yi

Installation view of 47 Canal’s booth at Art Basel in Hong Kong, 2019. Courtesy of Art Basel.

Hiding in the back row of the fair’s upper level, declining—respectfully—to speak to press (at least to this press person), 47 Canal isn’t asking for any attention. Yet the gallery is also showing one of the fair’s most delightfully bizarre sculptures: Josh Kline’s Saving Money with Subcontractors (Fedex Worker’s Hand with Pad) (2015). Part of a larger series that focused on the titular mailing and shipping company, the 3D-printed work resembles an open, packing peanut–filled FedEx box with gloves and a disembodied hand on top. Situated at a major art fair, the piece conjures ideas about the hidden labor that goes into such a production—the crating, shipping, unloading, and lifting that most fairgoers never see.

The ever-ingenious Anicka Yi is also debuting four new works at Art Basel in Hong Kong. One piece, and, and, and (2019), resembles a clear screen with an egg shape cut out of the middle, making way for connected tubes of pink fluid (which, given their positioning, look like sperm). Yi integrated desiccant beads into the composition, which typically help eliminate moisture, and LEDs give the piece an eerie glow. As with all of her work, cryptic science merges with keen design principles to create truly beguiling art.

Andrew Kreps Gallery

Galleries Section, Booth 3C22

With works by Roe Ethridge and Cheyney Thompson

At Andrew Kreps’s booth, gallery partner Liz Mulholland watched warily as Kreps slid a Cheyney Thompson painting out of a sleek metallic box on the ground. Although seven of the artist’s canvases hang in the gallery’s booth, many more (all 2019) are stored in these dark kits that sit like treasure troves on the floor. Each box is titled storageDevice, with a code of identifying numbers and letters, and holds a set of seven paintings (they’re priced at $285,000, and individual pieces are $58,000).

Each storageDevice set combines works drawn from several different series, holistically reflecting Thompson’s practice over the past 15 or so years. Mulholland noted that while the paintings appear radically different—a monochrome; a vibrant abstraction; figuration based on a Cézanne painting of a Rubens painting—they share conceptual concerns. Underpinning various works are Thompson’s careful considerations about paint quantities, color systems, and appropriation. The booth also includes vibrant Roe Ethridge photographs, priced from $18,000 to $35,000.

Richard Nagy

Galleries Section, Booth 3E17

With works by Egon Schiele

Installation view of Richard Nagy’s booth at Art Basel in Hong Kong, 2019. Courtesy of Art Basel.

With a masterful presentation of around 40 works by Egon Schiele, London gallery Richard Nagy introduces itself to Hong Kong with verve. The gallery is showing at the fair for the first time, and it has culled works not just from its own storerooms, but from private collections, as well (many pieces are not for sale). Gallerist Nina Hartl explained that of all the German and Austrian artists shown by the gallery, Schiele is “probably the most known” throughout Asia.

One highlight, Hartl pointed out, is a double self-portrait, Two Squatting Men (Double Self-Portrait), which Schiele created in 1918, just before he died (priced at $5 million, it’s not available). In the picture, the dual images of the nude artist rest against a dark, splotchy background of mauves and forest greens: Man merges with nature, and with paint itself.

Metro Pictures

Galleries Section, Booth 3D12

With works by Nina Beier, André Butzer, Cui Jie, Camille Henrot, Oliver Laric, Louise Lawler, Robert Longo, Paulina Olowska, Jim Shaw, and Cindy Sherman

At Metro Pictures, a small presentation of new work by Cui Jie—in dialogue with art by Cindy Sherman, Nina Beier, Louise Lawler, and Paulina Olowska—offers a neat overview of the Shanghai-based artist’s practice.

Among the suite of new works are Cui’s paintings (each priced between $45,000 and $60,000), which depict fantastical architecture. Beijing TV Building (2017) features a gold, Brâncuși-esque sculpture that appears to merge with the tower behind it; while in Shanghai Industrial Building (2018), two shapes resembling corporate high-rises float in a cloudy background. A sculpture on view, Hangzhou Honglou Hotel #4 (2018)—priced at $15,000—looks like a three-dimensional building model, and adds literal depth to the ideas about space and placemaking that pervade the presentation. (Three drawings on view were priced at $5,000 apiece.)

A number of Nina Beier’s Automobile pieces, from 2018, sit nearby—remote-control cars with hair spilling out of the windows. “Come back when it’s quiet and we can have a race with them,” said gallerist Tom Heman.

Michael Lett

Discoveries Section, Booth 1C35

With works by Imogen Taylor

Installation view of Michael Lett’s booth at Art Basel in Hong Kong, 2019. Courtesy of Art Basel.

New Zealand–born painter Imogen Taylor paints on slanted canvases—parallelograms that reinforce her ideas about reconsidering art history from an alternative angle. Her bold hues and merging picture planes evoke Cubism and Constructivism, but with warmth and a distinct personal touch. Taylor paints on rough hessian (burlap), embracing her surfaces’ inconsistencies (nubs of fabric, loose strings). Hooded Viole (2019), with a bright orange-and-gray line separating two circles, plays on the Cubist trope of the fragmented musical instrument, while also suggesting a sumptuous still life. (Works are priced from $6,500 for small works to $26,000 for the largest work on view.)

“She talks about queer formalism,” said gallerist Michael Lett. “As a gay artist, she is interested in the intersectionality of her own life and bringing all these threads together.” According to Lett, Taylor’s process has involved going on pilgrimages to see an artist’s work, bringing that information back home, and filtering it through her own experience, as part of a larger tradition of New Zealand women artists—many of whom have been long overlooked (Lett mentioned Rita Angus and Frances Hodgkins as examples).

10 Chancery Lane Gallery

Kabinett Section, Booth 1D36

With works by Wang Keping, Huang Rui, Ma Desheng, and Liu Heung Shing

Installation view of 10 Chancery Lane Gallery’s booth at Art Basel in Hong Kong, 2019. Courtesy of Art Basel.

Hong Kong gallery 10 Chancery Lane celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Stars Exhibition, the 1979 show that a group of Chinese artists put on illegally in a park across from Beijing’s National Art Museum of China. The government shut it down, and the artists protested until officials relented and reopened the exhibition. At Art Basel in Hong Kong, the gallery shows work by members of the Stars Art Group, including Ma Desheng (moody woodblock prints), Huang Rui (geometric paintings), and Wang Keping (dark wooden sculptures of abstracted bodies and couples). Prices range from below $10,000 for a print to the mid–six figures for a painting.

Gallery director Frank Lonergan noted that he views the Stars artists as major precursors to Chinese contemporary artists. “There’s really a period of time [until the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests] of robust creative and artistic freedom in China, driven out of this Stars exhibition,” he offered.

from Artsy News

[vincentbuckles]

What does it mean to be a MoneyMagpie?

Reading Time: 6 mins

Well for a start, being a MoneyMagpie means being you!

Just by reading this, checking out our newsletter each week and taking part in our reward scheme,  you are – by definition – a MoneyMagpie.

Yes, you’re it. A savvy, fun-loving, normal dude who believes there’s more to life than what seems to be allotted to you so you look around for opportunities to make a bit of extra cash, get fun stuff for free and find ways to share and give where possible.

But what about the specifics?

What are the main qualities of a MoneyMagpie?

How do MoneyMagpies live day-to-day?

What are the benefits of being a MoneyMagpie?

Celebrity MoneyMagpies

  What are the main qualities of a MoneyMagpie?

spending on what you need and love…only

If you’re a MoneyMagpie you still spend money..oh yes! But you don’t fritter it away on stuff that doesn’t matter.

You think (a bit) about what you’re spending on and you make sure it’s something you either need or really love.

You don’t spend on things that don’t really matter to you, however much of a ‘bargain’ the shops say it is and however many other people spend on it. You think for yourself and and only spend when you think it’s worth it.

  Saving and investing a little each month

You might not earn squillions (who does?) but you still manage to save and even invest each month.

MoneyMagpies set up monthly standing orders (nice and automatic so we don’t have to think) from the current account into a savings account, at least one investment (probably a stocks and shares ISA) and maybe into a pension too if they’re not already enrolled in a workplace pension scheme.

Even if it’s just a tenner a month, it’s worth doing and we know that over time the money will mount up so we’re all right in the short-term and long-term.

  making the most of the free things in life

Ooh MoneyMagpies love a freebie!

That’s why we have our Thursday Freebies newsletter (sign up here) and why we let you know about all the free stuff you can enjoy any time of the year.

There’s our local libraries, free things to have on Freecycle and Gumtree Free Stuff, walks in the park, picnics with the family, playing board games with friends and even free food you can find in surprising places!

  giving and sharing

The other great way to get things for free, we know, is by sharing what you have with neighbours and friends. That way we all get to have more without spending extra.

We give our time, our money and our things too because we know that’s where real riches are and MoneyMagpies are all aiming for ‘a richer life’.

  living – not worrying about money

Are MoneyMagpies obsessed with making and saving money?

No!

They aim for a life of living, not obsession.

Money needs to be put in its place: not ahead of us as something we’re desperately chasing after, not behind us as something we are afraid of, but sitting underneath us, supporting the life we want to lead.

MoneyMagpies put money in its place and, once they have set up healthy habits of saving and spending, they get on with their life and only think about money when they have to.

  Looking for easy ways to make a bit of extra cash

MoneyMagpies aren’t obsessed with making money, but they don’t pass up a good opportunity if it comes there way.

They’ll mystery shop, take part in online surveys, house sit and do all kinds of other easy things to make sure they have the money they need.

As a MoneyMagpie, make sure you’re signed up to our reward scheme where you can earn £5 for basically doing nothing!

  How do MoneyMagpies live day-to-day?

MoneyMagpies are you and me. So tell me (in the comments below) how do you live your life day-to-day?

The MoneyMagpies I know are just like anyone else. But they’re a bit more ‘sorted’ than the norm.

That’s not to say they’re perfect in every way, like Mary Poppins, but they tend to be a bit more together than many others because they’re aiming for real life and real living rather than being pushed around by the pressures of media, advertising, friends and even their boss!

MoneyMagpies make their own decisions.

They spend on what they love or need to spend on and save regularly

They’re not slaves to fashion but they like what they like

They enjoy the free things in life including time with family and friends, a beautiful sunset, the love of animals

They keep abreast of the news and new technology (though not slavishly) and they keep learning new skills and ideas

They share what they have and give as much as they are able both in money and time.

  What are the benefits of being a MoneyMagpie?

Peace of mind, fun and a rewarding life.

Seriously. If you spend less than you earn, regularly save and invest the rest and aim to give and share as much as you can, that sorts out a lot of the nuisances and irritations of life.

It’s not going to solve everything, but it will go a long way towards a better life.

It means you’re not so worried about not having enough, you know there are money-making opportunities all over the place and you have enriching relationships with friends, family and strangers.

  Celebrity MoneyMagpies

So the original MoneyMagpie is me – Jasmine Birtles!

I came up with the name. I set up the website. I run the website (well, I don’t really…MoneyMagpie Marc Crosby is the real big cheese, but it lets me think I do!).

If you want to find out more about what I’m doing at the moment, check out my website, my Twitter feed or my Instagram page.

  kelly brook

I met Kelly Brook a few months ago when we did a radio job together and I was thoroughly impressed by her attitude to work and money.

She is definitely a MoneyMagpie!

Kelly told me that she loves to work. Her agent gets her lots of gigs – presenting, acting, modelling and general appearances – and that’s how she likes it. She enjoys being out and about and doing her thing even if she doesn’t make so much money from the gig (at least that’s what she told me!).

She also told me that she invests a lot of the money she makes…or rather she has a financial advisor who does it for her. She said she will be rich by the time she’s in her fifties (i.el she won’t need to work) but she doesn’t see herself stopping the work just because she can. She enjoys being active.

  kriss akabusi

I’ve known Kriss for years and he’s a great example of someone who doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet. Given his incredible athletic performances in the Olympics you would probably guess that anyway!

Kriss is a deep thinker and motivational speaker at conferences and other business events. He’s also a regular on Sky Sunrise.

Kriss has a really good business head on him and knows how to manage his money.

  eamonn holmes

I’ve also known Eamonn for years and, as you will know from seeing him and his wife Ruth on the box regularly, he is constantly active, interested and on top of his game.

Eamonn is very interested in money matters and we often chat about the latest financial happenings on his Talk Radio show and on This Morning when he’s presenting with Ruth.

  eleri sion

The wonderful and ebullient Eleri Sion presents the lunchtime show on BBC Radio Wales and she is a MoneyMagpie par excellence!

Eleri has saved loads of money on her insurances, her home bills and on her bank account. She is great at truffling out clever ways to make money and has some good investing ideas too.

I do the money hour on her programme every Wednesday and we have a great time finding out about new laws and opportunities for everyone to make more of their money. Check out her programme on the BBC website here.

The post What does it mean to be a MoneyMagpie? appeared first on MoneyMagpie.

What does it mean to be a MoneyMagpie? published first on https://justinbetreviews.weebly.com/

[leafyxwrites]

Golden Sun: Chapter 5 - Letters Home

Hey Guy’s, the fifth chapter for Golden Sun is now up. Here is a portion of it, you can find the rest of it on my Ao3 and Fanfiction .net account

Hope you enjoy!~

Thatch,

I do hope this letter finds you well in your current residence as I know how uneasy you must be by now. Oyaji, too, is beginning to have reservations about his assignment. He was convinced that by sending you, it would ease the mounting stress between our coven and that of the Count's but it appears that Oyaji is starting to second guess his decision.

This isn't to say that he does not have faith in your ability to complete your task, but simply that perhaps it was too soon for you to be there.

Nonetheless, we have faith in you. If you need backup let us know and we will send someone to help you as soon as we can.

I imagine you're rolling your eyes at our worry right about now. So I will not push the matter any further. Oyaji sends his love, as we all do. Your presence at the castle is very…noticeable. It's much less loud as you can imagine. But not as much as you would think, Blenheim recently returned to the castle after completing his latest travel. And while he was out he befriended an Oxen.

Can you believe that? He just strode into the castle with that creature in tow. And of course Fossa thought he was dinner and started chasing after the poor thing until Blenheim had to step in and reassure the animal that he wouldn't be turned into a meal. Oyaji was amuses as you might have guessed, while the staff was none too pleased at having to clean up the mess afterwards. So to appease them and as a way of apology I had to give them extra pay to get things back in order.

The kitchen staff also misses you you know, they claim their dishes aren't as great without you about the kitchen. And I have to say, I miss your cooking as well. No one brews coffee like you. But I'm afraid that's the only praise I'm willing to give in this letter lest your head, or should I say hair, get bigger than it already is.

With loving affection,

Marco Newgate

Hey Marco,

You do realize you don't have to be so formal in your letters right? We're buds, brothers even and here you are sending me this cordial shit like I'm the freaking Count. And that last note at the end, are you getting sentimental over me? I am so touched! I'm laughing by the way. Just like I did when I read the whole Ox encounter what's the name Blenheim gave him?

And yes! I did roll my eyes plenty of times, you and Oyaji don't have to worry about me, I'm fine for the most part. And really I wasn't planning on staying this long either, a month or two max and we're bordering on what now, three months?

(I sighed here)

Things certainly aren't easy. I have to admit it's tough here and I would rather be anywhere else than being confined to this castle and the Count; but...dare I think that fate had an ulterior motive to my being here?

Vamps here are warped Marc. The Count has it in his head that we as Vampires have to domineer over the humans and has begun collecting them as pets. He had servants before and I admit slaves here and there, but they weren't treated this badly before. The things that transpire in this castle are horrifying. We had thought Donquixote was bad in his weird fascination of capturing humans and making them act out his perverted fantasies, but that pales in comparison to this. Humans here are worth less than animals Marco, anything and everything they do is monitored and if they take a single step out of line they're beaten within an inch of their life. There seem to be different tiers to this madness as well. I have yet to see what gets done to those they dispose but I promise you it is not something I wish to find out. And…

I'm sorry I had to set the quill down, it's not easy writing this down especially with how infuriated it makes me. It's nothing short of hell for them Marco and no matter what I tell the stubborn old Count he just won't listen to reason. He doesn't see the humans outside as a threat, He believes that the castle walls will hold against an attack from them. And I tried to explain that the humans had clever ways to their methods, bombs, catapults you know the works… There is no getting across to him and I feel guilty Marc. This is my fault, all of this that is happening to the humans...to.

The humans are losing hope on having a better life. It's heartbreaking to see Marco. And I can't raise a single hand to help not without challenging the Count. But I want to help them. And that's the reason I'm still here. I'm going to find a way Marco, I promised someone here I would find a way.

How I wish I had your Inclination* right now, the ability to clearly analyze a situation and find the best possible solution. But instead I have this storytelling gift that can do nothing at all for them.

Some insight would be highly appreciated, and I miss you guys too.

With love and a great hairdo,

Thatch Newgate

[thisdaynews]

Haley-Pence rivalry heats up as GOP weighs post-Trump future

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/haley-pence-rivalry-heats-up-as-gop-weighs-post-trump-future/

Haley-Pence rivalry heats up as GOP weighs post-Trump future

Vice President Mike Pence and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley have grabbed senior Republicans’ attention as fodder for a possible 2024 primary showdown. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images

politics

Interviews with top Republicans reveal they’re watching each other warily ahead of a potential 2024 showdown.

When top Republicans convened at the St. Regis resort in Aspen, Colo. last month for an exclusive donor retreat, several attendees said there was palpable tension in the room as the gathering’s two headliners prepared to speak: Vice President Mike Pence and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.

The assembled group of governors, high-dollar donors, and operatives were well aware that the two have big ambitions; to some it seemed as if Pence and Haley, who spoke on back-to-back days, were vying for their attention. Some in the audience found themselves parsing and comparing the two speeches and buzzed they were getting a sneak preview of a 2024 Republican primary. Others recalled something peculiar: Neither Pence nor Haley acknowledged each other in their presentations, even though they gave shout-outs to others attending the retreat.

Story Continued Below

At a time when Republicans are starting to contemplate what their party will look like after Donald Trump leaves office, a rivalry has developed between the two politicians who cut markedly different profiles — and signs of strain are bubbling to the surface.

Pence and Haley aren’t openly sniping: Publicly, both sides maintain there’s nothing but mutual respect between them. But interviews with nearly two dozen top Republicans revealed that the opposing camps are closely tracking each other’s moves, and remain deeply suspicious of one another.

The Pence team has recently asked senior Republicans for updates on Haley’s outreach to donors. And with Haley embarking on a national fundraising tour and promoting a new outside political group, top Pence advisers blame her for persistent rumors that she will replace him on the Trump’s ticket in 2020. Tensions flared after Haley chose not to publicly repudiate a Wall Street Journal column in June urging Trump to put her on the ticket.

Earlier this month, Haley took a swipe at Trump after his criticism of Baltimore and its black congressman, Elijah Cummings. “This is so unnecessary,” she wrote on Twitter, adding the eyeroll emoji. White House counselor and former Pence pollster Kellyanne Conway then fired back: “THIS is so unnecessary. Trump-PENCE2020,” Conway wrote of Haley’s tweet.

The shadow fight shows no sign of abating. Pence has spent the year barnstorming swing states that will determine the outcome of the 2020 election. But on Monday, he will head to Haley’s home turf of South Carolina to give the keynote speech at an annual barbecue hosted by GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan that has previously attracted White House aspirants. South Carolina is a gimme for Trump in the 2020 general election, but it will be key to anyone seeking a future Republican presidential nomination.

“The two of them have absolutely been friends and worked well together over the years, but you have to suspend disbelief to say that their relationship going forward won’t be viewed within the context of the presidential election after next,” said Rob Godfrey, who served as a senior aide to Haley during her six-year tenure as South Carolina governor.

On Wednesday morning, POLITICO posed questions to a Haley spokesperson about her political activities, relationship with Pence, and interest in a future presidential bid. That afternoon, before her office provided a formal response to the inquiry, Haley took to Twitter to declare that she’d had “enough of the false rumors.”

“Vice President Pence has been a dear friend of mine for years. He has been a loyal and trustworthy VP to the President,” she added. “He has my complete support.”

The following morning, Haley spokeswoman Chaney Denton provided an explanation for the tweet.

“This foolish talk about the vice presidency has gone on for a long time. Ambassador Haley preferred to avoid it altogether,” Denton said. “It was only when the subject kept coming up over and over, including this week, that she decided it made sense to address it.”

While the two could hardly be more different — Pence is a 60-year-old social conservative, she is a 47-year-old daughter of Indian immigrants — those close to them say they have long had a warm relationship. Haley traveled to Indiana in 2012 to help Pence with his gubernatorial campaign, then returned three years later to headline a state GOP dinner while he was embroiled in a competitive reelection race.

The two also shared an adviser in Nick Ayers, a prominent consultant who spent four years as executive director of the Republican Governors Association. And their offices gave them access to the same pool of powerful donors who fund races for governor.

The recent divisions have been fueled partly by the rumors that Haley could replace Pence on the ticket and the fact she took so long to address them. Some top Pence aides said they think Haley or an ally was behind the Wall Street Journal op-ed, which a representative for the former ambassador denied.

The White House has pushed back against the idea that Pence will get booted. Trump privately told Pence he was irritated by the Wall Street Journal article, and last weekend the president told reporters he was “very happy” with the vice president and “wouldn’t be thinking about” removing him from the ticket.

Erick Erickson, a prominent conservative commentator who is close to Pence and Haley, said the former ambassador was wise to shoot down the VP speculation. The rumors had intensified so much that two governors had recently reached out to him to ask whether Pence was about to be canned, Erickson said.

“I do think there are people in Trump-world who question her loyalty now,” he said. “And so making sure they see her as loyal is a good thing and getting out there and defending the vice president about rumors that are circulating behind the scenes isn’t a bad thing for her to do.”

Pence’s inner circle is convinced Haley is laying the groundwork for a future presidential bid. Since departing the administration late last year, she’s crisscrossed the country raising money for down-ballot candidates and conservative groups. Haley has also formed “Stand for America,” a political advocacy organization.

The group allows Haley to cultivate major donors and establish the kind of national fundraising network she would need to mount a national campaign. Among those working for the group is Mark Harris, an operative who worked on a pro-Marco Rubio super PAC during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Some Haley skeptics said they’re watching to see whether she uses the organization to help candidates in next year’s races, or saves its resources for later. David McIntosh, the president of the anti-tax Club for Growth, said potential future Republican presidential candidates will be judged based on what they do to help the party in 2020.

“I know where Pence comes out on it, that’s exactly what he’s doing. I would hope — and Haley’s a smart politician so I think she would get it — that that’s her key task right now as well,” said McIntosh, a longtime Pence ally.

Denton, the Haley spokeswoman, said the former ambassador is “committed to helping get the Trump-Pence ticket reelected, and to helping Republicans hold the Senate majority and win back the House.”

“All of her political efforts this year are about the 2020 elections,” Denton added.

In a statement, Pence chief of staff Marc Short said, “The Vice President has enormous respect for Nikki Haley , and she was an excellent ambassador for the Trump-Pence agenda during her one year at the UN.” (Haley served as UN ambassador for just under two years.)

Further complicating the dynamic between Pence and Haley is the role of Ayers, who remains close to both. Senior Republicans want to see whether the 37-year-old operative, who stepped down as Pence’s chief of staff at the end of last year to return to his native Georgia, picks one over the other.

Former colleagues of Ayers, who has deep ties to the donor class, say he hasn’t chosen sides. He speaks with Pence and Haley regularly and was seen with both at the Aspen retreat, which was hosted by the RGA. A few weeks later, Ayers and Pence appeared together onstage before a national group of young conservative leaders.

The skirmish offers a potential preview of what’s in store for the GOP after 2020 — a fight over the direction of the party. Pence has been the president’s most unwavering ally since he joined the ticket in 2016, even when Trump’s policies and personal conduct veered far from the principles Pence had long been known for. Haley, who endorsed Marco Rubio in 2016 and was critical of Trump during the campaign, has shown a willingness to break from the administration. She has urged the GOP to be more inclusive, representing potentially a new direction for the party.

Haley’s forthcoming memoir, to be released in November, may offer a hint of her approach. While the book isn’t expected to take direct shots at the White House, its promotional materials describe her as “a leader who seeks to bring Americans together in divisive times.”

Read More

[torentialtribute]

Barcelona 1-2 Chelsea: Frank Lampard’s side end tour of Japan on a high

Barcelona 1-2 Chelsea: Goals from Tammy Abraham and Ross Barkley provide the pre-season tour of Frank Lampard at the end of Japan at a high

Chelsea ended their pre -season tour of Japan with a 2-0 win over Barcelona

Tammy Abraham scored the first goal of the match after some excellent pressures

Ross Barkley then cam off the bank to make it 2-0 with a remote strike

Antoine Griezmann debuted after joining Atletico Madrid

Ivan Rakitic withdrew a goal for the Spanish giants with a lightning bolt

by Max Winters for Mailonline

published: 13:26 BST, July 23, 2019 [1 9459017] | Updated: 13:26 BST, July 23, 2019

Chelsea ended their pre-season tour of ] Japan in style with a victory over Barcelona in Saitama on Tuesday

It was the perfect way to bring their journey to Asia after they were last visited by Kawasaki Frontale defeated Frank Lampard optimism as the new season approaches

The Premier League side always looked comfortable against a Barcelona team without Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi and goals from Tammy Abraham and Ross Barkley made sure they won.

Chelsea ended their pre-season tour through Japan in a comfortable victory on Barcelona

Abraham latch in a loose ball and went around Marc-Andre have Stegen before he finished well

The striker jumped in the air trying to capture a starting role in the attack

Frank Lampard was impressed by what he saw from his team at the Saitama Stadium

G EVERY FACTS

Barcelona: Ter Stegen (Grandson 46), Pike (Todibo 46), Umtiti (Lenglet 46), Jordi Alba (Jaime 46), Roberto (Alena 46) , S. Busquets (Rakitic 46), Riqui Puig (De Jong 46), Collado (Malcolm 46), O. Busquets (Semedo 46), Dembele (Perez 46), Griezmann (Rafinha 46)

Subs not used: Feather, Araujo, Monchu.

Goals:

Bookings: None

Chelsea: Arrizabalaga, Azpilicueta (Bakayoko 70), Christensen (Tomori 46), Luiz ( Zouma 46), Emerson (Drinkon 70), Kovacic (Zappacosta 70)), Peter (Batshuayi 70), Mount (Barkley 60), Pulisic (Giroud 60), Abraham (Kenedy 60).

Caballero, Cumming, Palmer.

Objectives: Abraham 34, Barkley 81

Bookings: None

Antoine Griezmann, who makes his first start in a Barcelona shirt, looked lively in its appearance of 45 minutes.

He was a good match with Ousmane Dembele, but will no doubt look forward to forming a devastating trio with Messi and Suarez when competitive football starts.

The time for the game was far from that of a pointless pre-season game at the start.

Barca passed the ball at breakneck speed while the side of Lampard pushed his defense so high on the field that Marc-Andre Stegen hardly had an option to pass.

Abraham got the chance to prove his credentials for the regular No. 9 shirt and looked sharp for 60 minutes.

The 21-year-old wants to play a more prominent role after spending last season in Aston Villa and he first missed a glorious six-meter chance but reacted by leading his team.

The pressure from Chelsea was so stifling that they forced even the usually cool Sergio on the edge of his box.

Abraham first reacted to grab the loose ball, go past St Stegen and fire home in an empty net.

Antoine Griezmann made his first appearance for Barcelona since joining this month

Christian Pulisic was a threat on the left wing for Chelsea while he continued to adapt

Griezmann gives Chelsea & # 39; s Andreas Christensen in shrugs and tries to put him under pressure

Lampard barks instructions at his Chelsea players in the final game of their Japanese tour

] Griezmann needed medical help just before the rest after a blow to the leg

Barcelona made many changes during the break, while Frenkie de Jong entered midfield, while Chelsea made only a few defenses before sporadically changing the line-up during the second 45 minutes. With some neat play on the edge of the box, the ball was eventually rolled to the left, but Perez's shot went straight into the hands of Kepa Arrizabalaga.

Malcolm, one of those who fought in the Nou Camp for this future, then tried his luck from a distance, but his powerful left effort was also matched by an excellent dive, except Kepa.

Michy Batshuayi, another participant in the single striker, was given 20 minutes to impress and he missed a chance to double Chelsea's lead.

The Blues packed things up with about 10 minutes to play when Barkley collected a low pass from Marcos Alonso before squeezing a 20-meter strike in the nearby post. ]

Ivan Rakitic withdrew a goal late for the Spanish giants, but it turns out to be just a consolation, as Chelsea is now looking ahead to their remaining friends with the opening day of the season in Manchester United less than three weeks away.

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[olivereliott]

The limits of endurance: A BMW R80 with Ducati flair

The Japanese custom scene continues to amaze us. Even though the internet shrinks the world, there are still gems in the East waiting to be discovered—often by word of mouth.

Switch Stance Riding is a small custom shop in Amakusa—a series of small, little-known islands off the coast of Kyushu, Japan’s most southwesterly island. This part of Japan is well off the beaten track but the photographer Marc Holstein recently paid a visit, and told us he was the only Westerner for miles.

Marc’s detective skills led him to builder Toshiyuki Kozaka, who specializes in European machinery—specifically, bevel-driven Ducatis. Toshiyuki he regularly transports himself and his bikes all the way to France, for the annual Wheels and Waves festival.

But Kozaka-san decided to take a break from his usual fare for this project, opting to work with a 1988-model BMW R80. “I wanted to show what it would look like if a Ducati builder laid his hands on a BMW,” he tells us.

The goal was to give the BMW a classic endurance racing vibe, along with a huge hit of 70s style. But Toshiyuki also wanted to combine the elegance of Italian parts with the underlying German engineering of the R80.

It’s an eclectic mash-up of ideas, but he’s pulled it off magnificently.

Up front, Toshiyuki grafted on the 40 mm forks and top yoke from an ultra-rare Ducati 750 F1 Montjuich. The rear was upgraded with an adjustable shock from Öhlins, complete with a remote reservoir. It’s hooked up to a Paralever swing arm and final drive—borrowed from a newer BMW.

The wheels are stunning 17” units from Speedline, one size smaller than the R80 originals, and wrapped in Pirelli Diablo Rosso II tires. The single-disc front brakes have been swapped out for a set of dual disc Brembos from a BMW K1100, with the calipers mounted on hand-made brackets.

For the bodywork, Toshiyuki matched up an aluminum Moto Guzzi race tank, with a NCR racing fairing originally designed for the Ducati Pantah. And although they come from two different sources, both parts fit like they were meant for each other.

The tank took some fettling to go on the BMW’s frame, but the fairing was an easier fit. There’s a 7” Koito headlight embedded up front.

The tail unit is completely custom, right down to the seat with its combination Alcantara and vinyl upholstery. Toshiyuki redesigned the subframe, and installed a CEV taillight and custom-made license plate bracket out back.

The cockpit has not been neglected. The clip-ons are also from the Ducati Montjuich, the grips are Yamaha TZ 250 items, and the speedo is from Motogadget, mounted on a custom bracket.

A pair of modern sport bike mirrors carry the front turn signals, and a set of unbranded off-the-shelf rearsets rounds out the controls.

Toshiyuki left the motor itself stock, and with its airbox intact. A performance boost comes from a pair of Keihin FCR39 flatslide carbs, replacing the stock Bings, and a two-into-one exhaust system with an incredibly loud race silencer.

The wiring’s been tweaked with Dyna coils, Nology plug wires and a lighter Lithium-ion battery. There are neat little touches all over—like the carbon front fender, and the chunky, drilled exhaust hanger.

For paint, Toshiyuki had the bike finished in a pearl white, and the frame in blue. His close friend Orvis One, over in nearby Kumamato, then pushed the R80 over the finish line with an inspired throwback livery—all done by hand.

It’s a most unlikely concept, blending BMW and Ducati components, but the graphics, the parts spec and the classic endurance vibe has got us smitten.

We’re curious to see what Switch Stance will produce next—and wondering what other hidden gems are waiting to be discovered amongst the back roads of Japan.

Switch Stance Riding | Facebook | Instagram | Images by, and with thanks to, Marc Holstein

[dani-qrt]

Trump narrows Supreme Court list, to name nominee July 9

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he plans to announce his nominee to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on July 9, and that he has narrowed his list of candidates.

“I’ve got it down to about five,” Trump said, including two women.

He would not identify the candidates by name. “It’s a great group of intellectual talent … they are generally conservative,” Trump said.

When asked about several specific potential nominees mentioned in recent days, including federal jurists Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, and U.S. Senator Mike Lee from Utah, Trump said each was “outstanding.”

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Washington to his private golf club in New Jersey, Trump said he may interview two contenders for the nomination this weekend.

Trump said he not will push the candidates to say whether they would overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established a woman’s right to abortion.

“That’s not a question I’ll be asking,” he said.

He also said he would not discuss gay rights with the candidates, and that he might interview as many as seven people.

While Kennedy was a conservative, he proved to be a somewhat unpredictable “swing” vote over his long career. For example, he sided with the court’s liberals by voting in favor of abortion rights and gay rights in key cases. Views on abortion was expected to be one that senators will ask the new nominee about in confirmation hearings, even if the president does not.

Trump’s nominee must win confirmation by the Senate. Republicans control the chamber but only by a slim majority, making the views of moderates, including some Democrats, important.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday he hoped the confirmation process would be done “in time for the new justice to begin the fall term of the Supreme Court … the first Monday in October.”

White House aide Marc Short said on MSNBC that the White House hoped for a Senate confirmation vote in September.

That would put a new justice in place before the congressional midterm elections in November, when all seats in the House of Representatives and a third of those in the Senate will be contested.

Trump met on Thursday with senators from both parties at the White House to discuss the court vacancy created by the retirement of Kennedy, which was announced on Wednesday.

Kennedy’s replacement could cast a deciding vote on limiting or ending the right to abortion.

“I do not apply ideological litmus tests to nominees, but I want to see integrity, intellect, a respect for precedent and adherence to the rule of law,” moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins told Reuters when asked about Roe v. Wade.

Collins, who favors a woman’s right to choose on abortion, joined like-minded Republican Lisa Murkowski at the White House meeting. Also attending were Republican Charles Grassley and Democrats Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp.

Democrat Bill Nelson, asked by reporters if a nominee’s views on Roe v. Wade will be important to him, said, “very.”

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return from Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, to Washington, U.S., June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Makini Brice; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Cynthia Osterman and Bill Berkrot

The post Trump narrows Supreme Court list, to name nominee July 9 appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2tS0Ofl via Online News

[vinayv224]

Trump speaks at the White House on Monday. | Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The US is halfway through Trump’s “15 days to slow the spread,” and he’s already pushing to end it — even with coronavirus cases on the rise.

On day seven of the White House’s “15 days to slow the spread” initiative, President Donald Trump started talking about sending Americans back to work — an idea at odds with advice from his top health advisers.

In a tweet on Sunday, the president said in all capital letters: “AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!”

On Monday he retweeted similar opinions as news began to leak that behind the scenes Trump was sharing this view with his advisers, and one of his aides appeared on Fox News to say the same thing.

WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2020

Trump’s eagerness to end social distancing was also a major topic of his marathon news conference on Monday evening. He said he plans to reopen certain parts of the economy “not long after” the 15-day initiative ends, even if his medical and public health advisers don’t agree with him.

“The doctors, if it was up to the doctors, they’d say ‘let’s shut down the entire world,’” Trump said at one point, adding at another that the shutdown “causes other problems, and maybe it causes much bigger problems than the problem we’re talking about now.”

.@kaitlancollins: Did any of the doctors on your team endorse easing the federal guidelines? TRUMP: "Not endorsed." pic.twitter.com/azN4bVbg2Z

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 23, 2020

The point of the 15-day initiative was to encourage social distancing to “slow the curve” of the virus and save lives. But as of Monday, there was no sign that the pandemic was slowing. In fact, outbreaks in America are even outpacing some of the worst-hit countries in the world.

Worse, most experts, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, Trump’s most-prominent expert on his coronavirus task force, warn that the pandemic will get worse before it gets better. Experts fear that talk of encouraging people to get back to their normal routines quickly could hamper efforts to slow the pandemic — or even encourage its spread.

Trump, however, indicated on Monday that he thinks people have already learned the necessary lessons — even though he was speaking on the day after single-day coronavirus-related deaths in the country broke 100 for the first time ever.

"We learned so much discipline" -- Trump is talking like the coronavirus pandemic is in the rear view mirror, when in fact America just broke 100 deaths in a single day for the first time. pic.twitter.com/pnmFzN1QxW

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 23, 2020

There is a minority opinion — one expressed in particular by economists associated with Trump — that resuming some economic activity after a 15-day period is a worthwhile risk to take. But even the most-aggressive argument emerging from that camp doesn’t compare to Trump’s willingness to send people back to work en masse. It’s clear that with the Dow plummeting and unemployment claims spiking, Trump fears an economic disaster ahead of the 2020 election could doom his prospects. (Trump even posted a retweet suggesting his idea is directly tied to the election.)

Trump’s sudden swing from calling for a 15-day day crackdown, to doubting the science it’s based on less than half-way through, is emblematic of his reckless approach to combating the coronavirus. All signs point to the crisis getting worse — and the man in charge is putting his own political interests before the lives of Americans.

Trump is getting frustrated with the advice of public health experts

On Monday, the president followed up on his previous night’s tweet by retweeting a number of accounts with sketchy handles like @steph93065 that urged him to get people back to work — not only for the sake of the economy, but for his reelection hopes as well.

“15 days. Then we isolate the high risk groups and the rest of us get back to work before it’s all over for everyone!! #Landslide2020,” wrote @FedupMil in a post that was retweeted by the president.

On Monday morning came a slew of news reports that Trump is “itching to scale back social distancing after 15-day period,” as CNN put it. The New York Times reported that “at the White House, in recent days, there has been a growing sentiment that medical experts were allowed to set policy that has hurt the economy, and there has been a push to find ways to let people start returning to work.”

Then came a Fox News appearance from top White House economics adviser Larry Kudlow in which Kudlow echoed points Trump made on Twitter.

“The president is right: The cure can’t be worse than the disease, and we’re gonna have to make some difficult trade-offs,” Kudlow said. “I spoke with the president about this very subject late last evening.”

KUDLOW teases that Trump will try to send people back to work next week: "We can't shut in the economy... POTUS is right: The cure can't be worse than the disease, & we're gonna have to make some difficult trade-offs... I spoke w/ POTUS about this very subject late last evening." pic.twitter.com/OV02aLFGxh

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 23, 2020

It’s understandable that the White House is eager to reestablish a sense of normalcy. Experts are now saying that the ongoing curtailment of economic life could produce unemployment levels worse than the Great Depression and an unprecedented shrinkage of GDP.

Trump would obviously have a hard time making a case for his reelection amid that sort of economic carnage. But to the extent he cares about American lives more than his own political future, the responsible thing to do is wait and see — at least until there’s some semblance of improvement, not as cases mount.

The number of US coronavirus cases continues to rise

The whole point of the 15-day program is to prevent the health care system from being overwhelmed by “flattening the curve” of coronavirus cases. But as the following chart indicates, the number of confirmed cases in the US continues to grow at an exponential rate.

//

There’s no indication that the number of cases will plateau or start coming down before next week. On the contrary, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday that “it’s only getting worse, and in fact April and May are going to be a lot worse.”

It’s true that many of the US cases are concentrated in especially hard-hit regions like New York City, the San Francisco bay area, and Washington state. One might view that as contributing to an argument for the resumption of normal social and economic life in relatively better-off states like West Virginia or the Dakotas.

But the experience of Hong Kong, where the coronavirus seemed to be under control until a relaxation of social distancing resulted in a second outbreak and even more stringent measures, demonstrates the risk involved in prematurely encouraging people to go back to gyms, bars, and other places where the virus can spread. And the idea there’s much to be gained by reopening businesses in places like Grand Forks, North Dakota while San Francisco remains under lockdown and hospitals are at the verge of overflowing in New York is dubious at best.

Furthermore, while US coronavirus testing capacity has increased in recent days, the country still lags far behind others in terms of tests performed relative to the population — meaning we still don’t have a clear picture of how widely the virus has already spread.

Resuscitating the economy requires getting the virus under control

In the end, the choice Trump seems to think he faces between continuing strict social distancing measures meant at getting the coronavirus under control or ending them in hopes of stopping the economic collapse is a false one.

The latter can’t happen without the former, and the former can’t happen until the number of cases levels off, while more vigorous testing gives experts the tools they need to develop a better picture of how widely the virus has already spread.

Which is to say, even if you care about economic activity as the only value here, it's really not clear that anything like "business as usual" is even a possibility in the midst of a roaring pandemic, even if you let everything stay open.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) March 23, 2020

Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiology professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and director of Harvard’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, told the Washington Post that “every well-informed infectious epidemiologist I know of” thinks that the best way forward in the short term is more restriction, not less.

“We haven’t yet even seen signs that the growth [in coronavirus cases] is slowing, much less reversing. Now is the time to tighten restrictions on contacts that could transmit the virus, not loosen them,” Lipsitch said. “If we let up now we can be virtually certain that health care will be overwhelmed in many if not all parts of the country. This is the view of every well-informed infectious epidemiologist I know of.”

State governors have more authority than Trump to keep people at home, but what Trump says matters. For instance, the national standardization of social distancing measures throughout the country (with some notable exceptions, like beaches in Florida) came shortly after Trump stopped downplaying the gravity of the situation just over a week ago and embraced the “15 days” program.

At the very least, the president should wait until the outbreak is under control before trying to give people hope, because the trajectory of the numbers indicate there’s no good basis for doing so beyond short-term political self-interest. In fact, the quickest route back to some sense of normalcy is to stop the spread of the virus by continuing to encourage people to stay home, even if we have to do so for more than 15 days.

The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2wwy7Kh

[cleopatrarps]

Trump narrows Supreme Court list, to name nominee July 9

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he plans to announce his nominee to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on July 9, and that he has narrowed his list of candidates.

“I’ve got it down to about five,” Trump said, including two women.

He would not identify the candidates by name. “It’s a great group of intellectual talent … they are generally conservative,” Trump said.

When asked about several specific potential nominees mentioned in recent days, including federal jurists Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, and U.S. Senator Mike Lee from Utah, Trump said each was “outstanding.”

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Washington to his private golf club in New Jersey, Trump said he may interview two contenders for the nomination this weekend.

Trump said he not will push the candidates to say whether they would overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established a woman’s right to abortion.

“That’s not a question I’ll be asking,” he said.

He also said he would not discuss gay rights with the candidates, and that he might interview as many as seven people.

While Kennedy was a conservative, he proved to be a somewhat unpredictable “swing” vote over his long career. For example, he sided with the court’s liberals by voting in favor of abortion rights and gay rights in key cases. Views on abortion was expected to be one that senators will ask the new nominee about in confirmation hearings, even if the president does not.

Trump’s nominee must win confirmation by the Senate. Republicans control the chamber but only by a slim majority, making the views of moderates, including some Democrats, important.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday he hoped the confirmation process would be done “in time for the new justice to begin the fall term of the Supreme Court … the first Monday in October.”

White House aide Marc Short said on MSNBC that the White House hoped for a Senate confirmation vote in September.

That would put a new justice in place before the congressional midterm elections in November, when all seats in the House of Representatives and a third of those in the Senate will be contested.

Trump met on Thursday with senators from both parties at the White House to discuss the court vacancy created by the retirement of Kennedy, which was announced on Wednesday.

Kennedy’s replacement could cast a deciding vote on limiting or ending the right to abortion.

“I do not apply ideological litmus tests to nominees, but I want to see integrity, intellect, a respect for precedent and adherence to the rule of law,” moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins told Reuters when asked about Roe v. Wade.

Collins, who favors a woman’s right to choose on abortion, joined like-minded Republican Lisa Murkowski at the White House meeting. Also attending were Republican Charles Grassley and Democrats Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp.

Democrat Bill Nelson, asked by reporters if a nominee’s views on Roe v. Wade will be important to him, said, “very.”

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return from Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, to Washington, U.S., June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Makini Brice; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Cynthia Osterman and Bill Berkrot

The post Trump narrows Supreme Court list, to name nominee July 9 appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2tS0Ofl via News of World

[newestbalance]

Trump narrows Supreme Court list, to name nominee July 9

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he plans to announce his nominee to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on July 9, and that he has narrowed his list of candidates.

“I’ve got it down to about five,” Trump said, including two women.

He would not identify the candidates by name. “It’s a great group of intellectual talent … they are generally conservative,” Trump said.

When asked about several specific potential nominees mentioned in recent days, including federal jurists Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, and U.S. Senator Mike Lee from Utah, Trump said each was “outstanding.”

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Washington to his private golf club in New Jersey, Trump said he may interview two contenders for the nomination this weekend.

Trump said he not will push the candidates to say whether they would overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established a woman’s right to abortion.

“That’s not a question I’ll be asking,” he said.

He also said he would not discuss gay rights with the candidates, and that he might interview as many as seven people.

While Kennedy was a conservative, he proved to be a somewhat unpredictable “swing” vote over his long career. For example, he sided with the court’s liberals by voting in favor of abortion rights and gay rights in key cases. Views on abortion was expected to be one that senators will ask the new nominee about in confirmation hearings, even if the president does not.

Trump’s nominee must win confirmation by the Senate. Republicans control the chamber but only by a slim majority, making the views of moderates, including some Democrats, important.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday he hoped the confirmation process would be done “in time for the new justice to begin the fall term of the Supreme Court … the first Monday in October.”

White House aide Marc Short said on MSNBC that the White House hoped for a Senate confirmation vote in September.

That would put a new justice in place before the congressional midterm elections in November, when all seats in the House of Representatives and a third of those in the Senate will be contested.

Trump met on Thursday with senators from both parties at the White House to discuss the court vacancy created by the retirement of Kennedy, which was announced on Wednesday.

Kennedy’s replacement could cast a deciding vote on limiting or ending the right to abortion.

“I do not apply ideological litmus tests to nominees, but I want to see integrity, intellect, a respect for precedent and adherence to the rule of law,” moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins told Reuters when asked about Roe v. Wade.

Collins, who favors a woman’s right to choose on abortion, joined like-minded Republican Lisa Murkowski at the White House meeting. Also attending were Republican Charles Grassley and Democrats Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp.

Democrat Bill Nelson, asked by reporters if a nominee’s views on Roe v. Wade will be important to him, said, “very.”

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return from Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, to Washington, U.S., June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Makini Brice; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Cynthia Osterman and Bill Berkrot

The post Trump narrows Supreme Court list, to name nominee July 9 appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2tS0Ofl via Everyday News

[party-hard-or-die]

Trump narrows Supreme Court list, to name nominee July 9

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he plans to announce his nominee to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on July 9, and that he has narrowed his list of candidates.

“I’ve got it down to about five,” Trump said, including two women.

He would not identify the candidates by name. “It’s a great group of intellectual talent … they are generally conservative,” Trump said.

When asked about several specific potential nominees mentioned in recent days, including federal jurists Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, and U.S. Senator Mike Lee from Utah, Trump said each was “outstanding.”

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Washington to his private golf club in New Jersey, Trump said he may interview two contenders for the nomination this weekend.

Trump said he not will push the candidates to say whether they would overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established a woman’s right to abortion.

“That’s not a question I’ll be asking,” he said.

He also said he would not discuss gay rights with the candidates, and that he might interview as many as seven people.

While Kennedy was a conservative, he proved to be a somewhat unpredictable “swing” vote over his long career. For example, he sided with the court’s liberals by voting in favor of abortion rights and gay rights in key cases. Views on abortion was expected to be one that senators will ask the new nominee about in confirmation hearings, even if the president does not.

Trump’s nominee must win confirmation by the Senate. Republicans control the chamber but only by a slim majority, making the views of moderates, including some Democrats, important.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Friday he hoped the confirmation process would be done “in time for the new justice to begin the fall term of the Supreme Court … the first Monday in October.”

White House aide Marc Short said on MSNBC that the White House hoped for a Senate confirmation vote in September.

That would put a new justice in place before the congressional midterm elections in November, when all seats in the House of Representatives and a third of those in the Senate will be contested.

Trump met on Thursday with senators from both parties at the White House to discuss the court vacancy created by the retirement of Kennedy, which was announced on Wednesday.

Kennedy’s replacement could cast a deciding vote on limiting or ending the right to abortion.

“I do not apply ideological litmus tests to nominees, but I want to see integrity, intellect, a respect for precedent and adherence to the rule of law,” moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins told Reuters when asked about Roe v. Wade.

Collins, who favors a woman’s right to choose on abortion, joined like-minded Republican Lisa Murkowski at the White House meeting. Also attending were Republican Charles Grassley and Democrats Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp.

Democrat Bill Nelson, asked by reporters if a nominee’s views on Roe v. Wade will be important to him, said, “very.”

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return from Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, to Washington, U.S., June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Makini Brice; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Cynthia Osterman and Bill Berkrot

The post Trump narrows Supreme Court list, to name nominee July 9 appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2tS0Ofl via Breaking News

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/donald-trumps-two-weeks-white-house-panic/

Donald Trump's two weeks of White House panic

It seems so long ago, but July truly set the standard for the Donald Trump White House, and in just thirteen days, America learned that Washington D.C. had a new reality show. After those two weeks of intensity, things haven't slowed down, and many people who voted for Trump are now ready for this ride to end. Even for an administration that spent most of 2017 throwing off headlines at a dizzying pace, events in the second half of July unfolded at breakneck speed. They encapsulated both the promise and peril of President Donald Trump’s first year in office — and yielded aftershocks that reverberate within the White House even as the calendar turns to 2018. The two-week span laid bare the splintering of Trump’s relationships with two influential Cabinet members; foreshadowed the reach of the Russia probe into the interior of his orbit; saw the dramatic, last-minute defeat of one of the president’s signature campaign promises; and featured a senior staff shakeup that reset the rhythms of this presidency. From the outside, it was an unruly stretch that threatened to turn the White House into a sideshow. Inside the West Wing, the chaotic days between July 19-31 stand as a panicked memory but also one that also paved the way for future successes, according to nearly two dozen administration officials, outside advisers and lawmakers. Most of those interviewed for this account spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to talk publicly about private discussions. For the record, though: “That was the extreme,” said former press secretary Sean Spicer. ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI IN THE KISS His suit perfect and his hair just so, Anthony Scaramucci lifted his right hand off the briefing room podium and blew a kiss to the slack-jawed White House press corps. Trump’s new communications director, known to his friends as the Mooch, made his dramatic debut on July 21 and aimed to usher in a new era at a White House riven by in-fighting, drowning in bad press and struggling to maintain credibility. He lasted 11 days. Scaramucci’s shockingly brief tenure — some White House aides have taken to calling a short period of time a “Mooch” — underscored the drama that dominated and frequently paralyzed the West Wing. This was a White House where aides undermined each other with blind items in the press and jockeyed for face time with a president who left the Oval Office door open. Self-proclaimed “nationalists,” led by chief strategist Steve Bannon, were pitted against more centrist “globalists,” who included Trump’s powerful adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner. How the rivalries played out in the press was particularly important for Trump, the former reality TV star who consumes hours of cable news each day. For months, he demanded that his schedule be arranged so he could watch the daily White House press briefing, often barking at aides about what he was seeing in between sips of Diet Coke in his private dining room. Some of his rants were about the “fake” news media. But many were about Spicer, whom Trump believed failed to adequately defend him — or to look the part. Long believing he was his own best spokesman, Trump told one confidant that he saw something of himself in Scaramucci, a rich, fast-talking New York hedge fund manager who excelled on television. Within hours of when Scaramucci was hired, Spicer quit. That was only the beginning of the drama: Scaramucci fired one staffer and threatened to push others out, including the entire press shop. He vowed to cut down on leaks, but many in the White House believed that was a cover story for his own vengeful agenda. Believing that Bannon and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus had initially blocked his entrance to the White House, Scaramucci moved to oust them, culminating in a New Yorker interview in which he graphically cursed out both men. Scaramucci himself was pushed out the door days later. Scaramucci’s expletive-laden interview was only part of the problem. Trump was unwilling to share the spotlight with an aide, and came to believe Scaramucci had forgotten his place. THE TANK Tension was thick in the air as Trump and several top advisers strode out of a windowless room at the Pentagon on July 20 and climbed into a waiting motorcade. Over the previous 150 minutes, top U.S. officials had explained to the president the critical importance of forward worldwide deployments of U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic assets. For months, Trump had questioned why the U.S. government needed “so many people” abroad and suggested that he wanted to reduce its footprint, an idea that triggered alarm in capitals around the globe. Armed with charts, maps and diagrams, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others schooled Trump with talking points and commentary sure to click with the former businessman. They stressed the role that the military, intelligence officers and diplomats play in making the world safe for American businesses like The Trump Organization to operate and expand abroad. In a limited way, Trump agreed with Mattis and Tillerson, grudgingly agreeing to increase the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But on a broad range of foreign policy matters, Trump has steadfastly refused to adopt conventional approaches, straining decades-long alliances, refusing to condemn authoritarian regimes on human rights abuses and escalating the rhetoric in a nuclear stand-off with North Korea. The meeting in Room 2E924, known as “The Tank,” highlighted the sharp learning curve that the president, who had never held elected office or served in the military, faced as he grew into his new job. It also revealed the tensions within the administration between those from Washington’s national security establishment and those eager to pull back from international entanglements. That rift only grew after the top-secret gathering. It was soon after the meeting concluded that Tillerson was reported to have privately called the president “a moron.” The secretary of state pointedly did not deny that he had done so — eventually, a State Department spokeswoman did — and it prompted a furious response from Trump, who repeatedly undermined Tillerson on his approach to North Korea. But Tillerson was not the only attendee at The Tank to have misgivings after the session. In the days that followed, Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, encouraged his best friend, Homeland Security chief John Kelly, to take the White House chief of staff job. THE GENERAL Buffeted by fierce rains and wind, Air Force One circled over Washington on July 28. When it finally touched down at Joint Base Andrews, a new phase of the presidency began. In a series of tweets, Trump announced that he was appointing Kelly, a retired four-star general, to replace Priebus. As the 140-character bursts reached their smart phones, a pair of senior White House aides who been sitting in an idling SUV with Priebus stepped out onto the rainy tarmac and left the outgoing chief of staff alone. Priebus never could bring a semblance of order to the rivals that populated Trump’s West Wing and the president had openly mused about replacing him. Never empowered to fully step into the role, Priebus often acted as merely the captain of his own squad of establishment Republicans, vying with Bannon and Kushner for influence. Trump had previously floated the job to Kelly, who initially demurred. Kelly told confidants he had a change of heart because he felt that the president’s term had been imperiled by poor staff work. “I don’t think you can overestimate the effect of the impact of those (staff) changes and that period,” Marc Lotter, Vice President Mike Pence’s spokesman, said at the time. One of Kelly’s first official moves was to fire Scaramucci. In the months that followed, other headline-grabbing aides — Bannon, Sebastian Gorka and Omarosa Manigault-Newman — also were pushed out as Kelly tried to enforce a one-team ethos. Most impactfully, aides said, Kelly worked to cut down access to the Oval Office and seize control of how information reached Trump. Several advisers deemed Kelly’s hire a turning point for the administration, a move that cut down on internal fights, restored order to the West Wing and laid the groundwork for wins down the road. “Once myself, Reince and Steve were out of the picture, I think that moved the target off — it got people back to focus,” Spicer recalled. But there were limits to what Kelly could — or would — control. The chief of staff made clear he would mount no effort to manage Trump’s no-holds Twitter habit. And Trump, in turn, chafed at Kelly’s handling. THE THUMBS-DOWN Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stood on the Senate floor, his arms crossed, his face impassive. Trump, back at the White House, had hung up the phone, his last attempt at persuasion over. At 1:29 a.m. on July 28, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona strode onto the Senate floor. The 80-year-old, just weeks after a brain cancer diagnosis, was poised to cast the tiebreaking vote on the GOP’s health care bill, in what was meant to be the fulfillment of seven years of work to undo President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. McCain paused for a moment, and then flashed a thumbs-down, drawing gasps from fellow senators. The bill was dead, and the White House had been dealt a devastating blow. Though Trump had spent the presidential campaign promising to repeal and replace Obamacare on Day One of his administration, the Republican effort had failed. It was a fiasco that underscored how the White House was struggling to push through Trump’s agenda even though his party controlled both houses of Congress. Frequently exhibiting a shaky grasp of policy details, Trump often baffled aides by waffling on various options — including whether the GOP should repeal the Affordable Care Act and come up with a replacement later, or let it simply starve by not paying subsidies. His approach to lawmakers on Capitol Hill was equally inconsistent. Trump snarled in private about McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan and showed no hesitation to air his grievances publicly. He used Twitter to deliver broadsides against the majority leader — urging him to “get back to work” — and targeted individual Republican senators whose health care votes the White House once courted. But from the ashes of the health care defeat came the administration’s first major legislative triumph: the tax cut legislation passed on Dec. 20. The bungled legislative process on health care sparked a new call for discipline in the administration’s approach to Capitol Hill. The White House would buy in to the plan at the start. Staff would cajole wavering legislators and work to resolve their concerns while there was still time to address them. Trump’s political operation would begin work to sell the tax package in the approaching midterm elections. Trump himself worked behind the scenes making phone calls to key members and, perhaps more importantly, reined in his public criticism of members of his own party. With just 11 days left in 2017, Republicans from the House and Senate stood on the White House South Lawn and applauded as the president announced the bill would become law. Trump allowed that he’d learned a thing or two — about the importance of relationships, in particular. “When I came, I didn’t know too many,” he said Friday of the legislators. “I can call anybody now. I know every one of them very well.” PAUL MANAFORT STARS IN THE RAID The sun had not yet risen on July 26 when FBI agents arrived without warning at the front door of Paul Manafort’s home in Alexandria, Va. Using a search warrant, they emerged from the home of Trump’s former campaign chairman with a trove of material. A new, more dangerous chapter had begun in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible coordination between the president’s campaign and Russian officials. The raid was a stark reminder for the White House that, no matter the successes or failures of the moment, the cloud of the Russia probe loomed on the horizon. Trump had grown furious at the distraction, fuming to advisers that he had done nothing wrong while railing that it was a conspiracy by Democrats and the so-called “deep state” to delegitimize his presidency. Exactly one week before the raid, Trump sat in the Oval Office with reporters from The New York Times and, with little prompting, veered into an attack on his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Trump blasted Sessions, once one of his closest allies, for recusing himself from the Russia probe, believing that helped lead to Mueller’s appointment. Trump continued his assault in a series of tweets in which he called Sessions “weak” and “beleaguered.” Privately, he discussed firing Sessions, but was met with a wave of resistance from his advisers. Some warned it would worsen the Russia probe, while Bannon told the president it would hurt with his base supporters, who loved Sessions’ tough-on-crime approach at the Justice Department. Kelly, in his first weekend on the job, called Sessions to assure him his position was safe. But the rift between Trump and Sessions still has not healed. Recently, Trump bemoaned the Republicans’ loss in a special election in Alabama and in part blamed Sessions, whose departure from the Senate to head to Justice necessitated the election. And the Mueller investigation shows no signs of ending. Scores of top aides and allies, including Kushner and Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr., have been questioned by Mueller and congressional investigators. In October, Manafort was charged with money laundering and other financial crimes related to his political consulting work in Ukraine. Several other Trump associates also have been charged by Mueller, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents and is cooperating with the investigation. Though still shadowed by the probe, Trump emerged from the crucible of the 13 days in July with a more organized and less drama-filled White House, as well as lessons learned that would yield legislative victories. But the president himself remains unchanged. Impulsive and unconventional, Trump has spent his first year in office casting aside norms and mores. With his Twitter account as his weapon, the president has shown no willingness to ignore any slight or change the brash ways that he believes got him elected. “I said with the exception of the late great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office,” Trump told a rally crowd in Ohio on July 25. “It’s so easy to act presidential, but that’s not gonna get it done.”

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Laureus World Sports Awards Declares for Greatest Sporting Moment of the Year

It forced the match to be postponed and also several of the travelling lovers, after the Borussia Dortmund team bus had been struck by an explosion before the Champions League quarter-final with Monaco on 11 April. That is when the German club supporters did something unheard of: they  chose to social media to provide their homes to their “rivals”.

Just as heartwarming is the narrative of Bill Conner — that cycled over 2,000 kilometers to honour his deceased daughter Abbey and her organ donation — and Billy ‘The Whizz’ Monger — a 18-year-old Formula 4 motorist, who suffered life-changing injury but didn’t allow it to hold him back.

September’s six contenders for Laureus’ Greatest Sporting Moment, which include India’s Man Kaur (fourth from right), who is a 101-year-old athlete who also won gold at the World Masters Games.

There’s also the inspiring story of a athlete Man Kaur, who sprinted to gold .

From hard age the six contenders to the Laureus Greatest Sporting Moment of the Year of this month are not just inspiring, but heartwarming and emotional to say the very least.

From August to December, the public can pick their favorite from a shortlist of six videos, selected by the sporting legends of the Laureus World Sports Academy every month. The five monthly winners will then proceed head-to-head for a general vote, with the winner being announced at the 2018 Laureus Awards Ceremony.

Laureus Greatest Sporting Moments demonstrate qualities like sportsmanship, drama, fair play, and devotion, and look beyond the scoreboard or podium. They symbolise the actual values of sport and contribute to life the message that sport has the capacity.

Since Laureus World Sports Awards’ India spouses, Firstpost brings one of the September nominees for its 2018 edition:

For Person Kaur, from Chandigarh in India, age is just a number. The Masters athlete picked up the gold medal of her career on 24 April at the World Masters Games in Auckland, New Zealand, finishing the dash in 1 minute and 14 seconds. “I liked it, and I’m very, very happy,” Kaur said after the race. Kaur started participating at age 93 eight decades ago, in sports events Gurdev Singh, 78, who also competed in the Masters Games.

“If my mum wins, she moves back to India, and she is excited to inform others, ‘I’ve won so many medals for this nation’ Winning makes her happy,” Singh said. When training at home at Chandigarh, quite a few short distances runs each day — and she considers other women needs to follow in her footsteps. “She motivates them to operate, not consume incorrect foods, and they ought to encourage their kids also to get involved in the Games,” said her son.

After an explosion happened beside the Borussia Dortmund team bus before the Champions League quarter-final with Monaco on 11 April footballing rivals showed solidarity. The incident left Monaco fans and forced the game to be postponed until the evening. Social media came to the rescue as #BedsForAwayFans and the were used by Dortmund fans, offering a place to stranded Monaco fans. The hashtags trended globally and generated over 16 million impressions in just 12 hours. Police confirmed there were three explosions near the bus, breaking some of the windows of their vehicle.

Shards of glass injured defender Marc Bartra and also was taken to the hospital quickly. He underwent surgery on his wounded arm to repair a fracture and then remove shrapnel. The Spain defender occurred to Instagram to explain his emotions: “The pain, the fear and the doubt of not understanding what was going on, or how much time it would last … were the greatest and toughest 15 minutes of my life.”

The Lucas family have supported the University of North Carolina for so long as they can remember, also about 8 January, Carolina had been enjoying with NC State. “That game had actually been postponed due to snow and the cold weather,” said Adam Lucas, dad of Asher. So 11-year-old Asher and his buddy Grant, determined that they’d amuse the crowd by trying a shots because there was no established half-time show on this day.

Asher hit on the first shot…

“After the initial one, they are like, ‘Hey, you’ve made a half-court shot. Good job,'” Asher said.

“I’m like, that is nuts, there’s no way I can produce three,” Asher recalled. “But let us try it as the crowd’s excited. You do not want to just stop there.”

“The crowd went nuts when I produced three,” Asher said. “It felt amazing because I do not really know anybody that created three half-court shots earlier, and it is really hard to perform.”

Abbey Conner died tragically while on holiday in Mexico. Her dad Bill chose to get something to honour her life. On 22 a cyclist, Conner, jumped on his bike and began riding across the nation. He made a decision to journey 2,600 kilometers — from his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida — to stop by Broward Health Medical Centre, the hospital that recovered Abbey’s organs for donation back in January. 1,400 miles into his journey, he fulfilled 21-year-old Loumonth Jack Jr, that only survived because Abbey had donated her organs, and her heart had been donated to save his life.

He felt like he knew him after Conner fulfilled Jack. “Knowing he is alive due to Abbey, Abbey is living inside of him — it is her heart with him stand up straight,” Conner said. “I was happy for him and his family, and at precisely the same time, I must reunite with my daughter.” So Conner would hear his daughter’s heartbeat for the first time as she died in January after having a hug, Jack pulled out a stethoscope. Both men began to split. The family made a listing of Jack’s heart as he rides , so it could be listened to by Conner. Conner continued on his journey to spread awareness revealing his daughter’s narrative along the way after spending a little bit more time with Jack.

Josh Landmann was left paralysed from just below his chest after plunging and then hitting his head at the bottom, suffering spinal injuries. Despite his own injuries, the 22-year-old didn’t let his freak accident stop him committing a gruelling obstacle course, Mudder, a go on 13 May in order to raise money. When Landmann tried to crawl up the hard ‘Everest’ barrier on the program, he obtained support from Neil, his father, and participants that outstretched their hands and hauled him to the top of the barrier. “I got to the edge thinking I’d have the ability to crawl up it very easily and reach the rope, although it wasn’t quite as easy as that. It was quite slippery. And then dad’s trying to push me and he is slipping,” Josh stated.

Neil added: “He is so determined to succeed and attain things that it was just ordinary. We have grown up with his progression and positivity. He is amazing in that respect” On the support he has received since the difficult Mudder challenge, Josh said: “I’ve received numerous messages out of mums and out of kids who say they wish to do it when they are older. I’ve had messages from those that are at the hospital at the minute who say they are very low and also ask ‘How can you do it?’ It’s very surreal.” Today Landmann wants to get involved in the Winter Paralympics at 2022: “I’ve been operating with the British para-snowsports group and done several races, it’s opened so many doors for me. But I’ve got a couple more challenges ahead also.”

Billy ‘The Whizz’ Monger was conversing with Formula 1 celebrity Lewis Hamilton, at the World Championship Practice Day at Silverstone just months after a dreadful accident, where the teenaged motorsport driver lost both his legs. Even the 18-year-old suffered life-changing accidents after he crashed into a stationary car’s rear, at a Formula 4 race at Donnington Park April. Billy was stuck in his own vehicle for 90 minutes before he is airlifted to a hospital in Nottingham, but his legs could not be saved by medics. Mercedes motorist Hamilton tweeted roughly Monger. Hamilton published: “I’ve only just found the news of the tragic incident. Thoughts and prayers are with you and your family, @BillyMonger.”

The incident contributed to a fundraising effort for the rehabilitation and recovery that increased over # 800,000 — Formula 1 drivers Lewis Hamilton of Billy and shook the community, Jenson Button and Felipe Massa are among the supporters. Regardless of the accident, Billy has not let losing both arms scupper his motorsport ambitions. Eleven weeks after his injury, the Formula 4 motorist was back from the wheel with assistance from Team BRIT, which assists drivers and army to take part in motorsport. Monger drove a automobile mounted hand controllers to clutch, brakes and the throttle. Talking at the moment, Billy said: “It just shows you when a tragic event like this occurs how folks pull together. I’ve still got a few years in my own for sure so I want to prove how much you’re able to do even with something like this.”

To view these emotional and participating clips and VOTE for your favorite, visit myLaureus.com.

Sports fans can also send videos they’ve seen and appreciated to myLaureus.com and they’ll be considered for the recap in future months.

Released Date: Sep 01, 2017 06:17 pm | Upgraded Date: Sep 01, 2017 06:17 pm

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