IF you CAN Believe it…

9/4/2026

Hmm Where was I…? Oh yes, The Crazy Mountain Ultra. I have not yet fully pieced together my emotions I suppose, but we should get into this regardless. It was nearly two months ago…woops. The funny thing about stream of consciousness is that…it gets interrupted whether we like it or not. Note taking the event and then coming back around to the beautiful memories later isn’t so bad though. Keeps us connected even when we are all apart.

Let me begin with our morning. Which for me began at about 00:30 thinking “Is this really what’s going on?” staring out my open car window at a blinking sky full of the familiar stars of home…And the sounds of Wolves not too far away having steak for dinner. I cannot have been the only one who heard that. Or maybe I started hallucinating first. Who really knows?

I awoke to a very homelike static shiver down the back of my spine and the relentless flashing of lightning closing in on camp like a war ship. I won’t make any of us relive it too much.

By the time it was all calm, it was time to send the feral kids off to school. All I can say for certain is that I don’t even see very well in the dark, but the sky…I hadn’t really seen it in a couple of years and I missed it very much. I am no astrophotographer so let me say this. No city skyline, landscape, or beautiful face could ever compare to the absolute majesty of the Montana Sky in the Crazy Mountains.  All else in comparison is beyond our horizons.

“Have a good Day kids.”

Anyways, do any of you know much about the physics theory of time dilation? 3 days felt both like 3 weeks and 3 minutes. Everything like the first day of High School. The Start of a day that I have made sure I will never ever forget.

“When the going gets weird, The Weird Turn Pro.”-Hunter S. Thompson

The Sun rose and I heard the cranes first.

This for me, was certainly quite the little solo trek-even to the “easiest” accessible aid station on the course. It was about 2 hours on the highway (I drive too fast) and then what would have been 45minutes on a dirt road through mountains and cattle trails. That is of course if I could have just driven and not stopped about every tenth of a mile to take photos. I was early though and didn’t see another car until arriving at my destination. Everyone else was still on the other side of the Mountains.

 Knowing my own little limitations I quite honestly still know I made the right decision. I am still getting emotional thinking about the day spent out there. The living, breathing, perpetually moving community that is Ultra on Full Display. Every individual story unfolding and every memory I could grasp I tried to. The happenings of these moments never to be duplicated ever again.

Also this cabin? Majestic.

Have you ever eaten Chinese Food at the foot of a mountain?

I cannot imagine how the runners all must feel still. Getting to see about 70% of them at close to halfway, was special. Estimating “My runner” (or so everyone kept calling him,) between 6-8pm, is about all I could really think about…you know besides the waterfall I chased after that afternoon. Then it happened. I started worrying.

It got HOT. Real hot. Florida Hot. Then it kept happening, complete strangers “How’s your runner doing?” SHIT how IS he doing? It dawned on me for the moment I was the only one tracking him outside the race hq. So, the run back and forth every 90 minutes to make sure he was still moving (some people weren’t at this point) was officially on. Staying vigilant for I don’t know how many hours. Seeing as I wasn’t actually his crew all I could really do is be on “make sure he’s alive” watch. In my generalized anxiety, I had forgotten that my company might even actually be noticed or matter?

And there it was…try as I might to be the proverbial outcast, I was hit with the inexplicable realization that I was being included, and a part of all this. If even for emotional support…which. What do you mean I am not invisible?

And after awhile…The Captain of his own sails, Showed up. Looking tough and brave.

A smile across his face mostly, staring in the eyes of the hardest race I have ever seen in real life, and somehow asking me “Soo, how was your day?” as he loaded up on calories.

Honestly, I was so stunned I said something stupid like “I went to the waterfall.” And continued to shoot photos. Completely rocked by the whole maybe 10minutes (tops, probably less) that I got to see him. 

Then it was time for my own race with the sun back to base…. (I mentioned I don’t see well at night, right?) Ya’ll I am not sure what you have heard about Florida drivers, but I will gladly admit that while I do know how to use a turn signal, in this sort of country without another car in sight, I do not hesitate to get down the damned road. I must not have been going too egregiously fast for the tolerances of the Troopers I saw in both directions, and boy you bet they saw me. In my stupid high beam GMC white rental SUV ( I HATED IT but it was very nice…for a rolling computer.) Also… sorry.

I would be…. Not really actually sleeping until Saturday night after all the festivities would end. Something I was not sure I was even capable of riding out these days much less with as much energy I did. It takes very special people to bring out the best in each other. That’s all I know for sure.

(The start line at 3am)

The man in charge of timing ended up making me a full pace sheet so maybe I could rest, so I must have been looking real great by 3am. And keeping him awake, which he said he didn’t mind having someone to keep him awake.

I was ready to do whatever I had to do. After 4 years, I didn’t realize how much I missed this shit.

“We’ll see you Thursday…”

So as I very well mentioned- upon setting out West I was throwing many, MANY ideas at the wall. The pasta that stuck (who does that? it doesn’t work, you have to just try the pasta) without it costing too many monies, were a few good opportunities for me to drive and run. There was no real plan. With the list (including, but not limited to, the possibility of getting abducted by aliens or eaten by bears in the crazy mountains) I was quite satisfied with whatever ended up being clever.

Three weeks before the race- having sent in my media remittance form and purpose- I was not sure what would go. I certainly didn’t expect a “Thank you for sending this over. I have you written down! We’ll see you Thursday at checkin.” from the RD herself. The Mountain Ultra community as a whole almost felt mysterious for me, so it became clear this was what I was setting sail for. I did not expect the people surrounding this race to be everyone I had looked to be with (if even for a short weekend) for a really long time, but I was pretty sure.

When your whole life has felt like one big extended Vision-quest the best way forward is to follow your feet and take notice when the lights start guiding your way a little easier…..or you at least tend to notice when the wind is at your back. Things fell together perfectly, even the beautiful drive and a great Turkey sandwich in Wheaton.

And so it goes- There I was. Thursday Afternoon. Crazy Mountain 100.

The type of race you read about, or watch through the windows of the internet and think “Whoa!? Is that what Ultra is REALLY ABOUT?” Yes. Obviously.

It all felt unequivocally natural, like I had been there before. Just being with the Family that we are all a part of by deciding to take this very specific ride. The Bukowski quote on the website is a good one, but I much prefer the updated and wilder Counselor of the Western world:

“Some may never Live, but the Crazy never die.” – Hunter S. Thompson

Here come the Crazies.

When I drove into the clearing and saw proper Base Camp, I knew this was the real deal.

Home sweet home.

Goodnight?

Waterfalls

Where there are Glass Lakes….usually, there are Waterfalls.

The hike to Morrell falls was nothing short of breathtaking, and not just because I am an asthmatic from below sea level who’s never seen a real one. For the most part my mind and body had kicked into the routine, even altitude. The laundry gets a day everywhere if you stay there long enough- and pack light. The ‘I guess I live here now’ instinct kicked on, and I personally can start just being comfortable because I have no other choice…More on that later.

Maybe my heart was hidden somewhere in the Mountains and waterfalls for me to still find. Who really knows?

Regardless, have you ever felt like you’re with someone that the whole Universe ripped itself open to drop into your life? How about a couple of them?? A few? It might just be that hard to find my people. Especially my best friend. She’s all of it and then some. My favorite for sure, and I love her like I do all my people.

Like a butterfly loves the sun.

But I know specifically if she and I were allowed to be with each other too long the fabric of reality might just split right open. I’m probably being dramatic again, and this is my expression of waterfalls.

Imagine if I was allowed to fall? Effortlessly like water. I digress. Once you tell your story a few times- it gets shorter- But with those with eyes to read, the detail remains the same. Simply put:

Waterfalls.

Chasing waterfalls is a notably marvelous idea, but an even better goal- especially for a flatlander like me. See a Real Waterfall: Check.

Road Trip half way across the state on other business and stumble across a second?

SIDE QUEST INITIATED.

Be like water, my friends.

Get to the Fun Part

(Any of the following was written through blurred misty joyful eyes of triumph- yet again.)

Shadows and whispers of another life can always be heard clearer when traveling. Maybe especially by air. The Terminal in Orlando, for me, has many memories intact that now stand behind one of those white blind walls, and two old yellow kitchen doors that somehow have probably been hanging since the 1970s. Another story for another day if I find it’s still worth telling.

As I made my way past those ugly doors to the United club, it felt like maybe for once life was moving with me, rather than like some wind I have to tack against to make way. Not that flying with a broken nervous system is easy. Nor is flying from sea level to…Denver. Then puking your way into Montana and the arms of your best friend (I can’t do anything normal.) Also, Fuck Denver, I think?

All I could think was “Get it together.” Or as my Dad would say (and absolutely DID SAY to me via text) “Get to the Fun Part.”

To some or perhaps, all- these stream of consciousness details might be skippable in favor of the photos- so let’s skip some of it, just like rocks at the ‘crik.’

As the routines started to take hold, the day felt friendly and familiar-with one major exception- THAT BACK DROP:

Montana in Late July. What a sight to behold.

Even the local little overlook blew my mind. The River at Rattlesnake National Recreation Area was enough for me to be taken aback and blow right through 3 rolls of film. I was so fixated on water over Mountains and stone I couldn’t even think straight anymore. I could hardly take a few steps without photographing the view. I was absolutely ‘that guy with the old camera’ and already loving every second.

The aforementioned best friend in creation took this one of me below and many more on a disposable camera that truly show me that I am not a photographer….and maybe you ask….

WHY? As a word worker, shoot on only 35mm, get sun flares and underexposed shots of nature? Because it’s FUN and makes it look like 1997 again. That’s why. (Also, just maybe, pictures are helpful when words fail.)

This was just the warmup. The fun part was truly about to begin. The whole reason I would leave home besides my favorite person, was something in the world I had never truly experienced yet…..Waterfalls.

Maybe some of them aren’t so literal.

Forward: Another Tuesday

As we get a bit older, or uh over thirty as it were, time seems to shift and dilate differently according to how long time has seemed to pass for us. I am not sure if it’s two years writing and still waiting for my first load of dribble to be optioned, or thinking I might die last year. Turns out we all will and I am certainly not going any faster upon further determination. So to hell with all that.

In four years away from the Ultra Community- I never felt truly separated from it. I was a fan before I was a runner. So the amount I have been welcomed time and time again no matter how strange my season in life, I have remained at least a loyal fan. I have kept my ship near the harbor.

We are here now, though, so let me reintroduce myself. Sarah Elizabeth Glass, but my Friends call me Izzy. I am certainly a writer who was sidetracked into Event production and stage craft for far too many years, as well as writing songs for a (sort of) living the last couple of years. The long short of that story is my segmented and strange previous book, as well as stories I will tell another day. Twelve years in the abusive clutches of the music industry, the ego of a lost man, and my own dreams I at least wanted to see the ends of….some dreams turn into nightmares. Then you wake back up.

Somewhere in there-I did become more than a fan…. 100ker, solo first known route 50 mile runner, and a few big hundred attempts that went awry because of the above reasons. I too, am a hunter….but uh SNAP CUT TO..

Another Tuesday. Three weeks to the day ago I took off to the West to see my Best friend. With my Dads old camera I fixed, as much film as I could afford…I was as ready as I could be. I had all kinds of weird ideas thrown at the board. I wanted waterfalls and a little road trip. That’s all I really knew before getting my media form approved for Crazy Mountain. A race I have watched a number of years, and once live through the window of someone I will most certainly mention later. Probably too many times.

All that, and if you read about it, it’s completely mental. With more climbing in 100 miles than Everest Base Camp to the peak… twice. Google it I dare you I checked.

This tall windy Palm Tree was certain- She’d be facing the one and only big God himself just to see it all go down.

Turns out it was all that….sorta? But mostly it was just perfect. Chill even, for the amount of emotions. A reflection of the person in charge, every volunteer, runner and everyone in attendance. It was wonderful in every way from the moment I pulled off and followed the signs to the cow pasture I’d call home til Sunday morning (that was also not the plan.)

If Crazy Mountain 100 is a family, then I was simply a lost girl who finally wandered into the right family reunion. So let me use this moment to just say: Thank you first and foremost.

Thank you to my Best Friend in every dimension for leading me back “Out There.” (There will be more on our adventures.)

Thanks to the guy who I have known longer than I thought (that time thing) who was dumb enough to tell me two days before he’d be running no crew no pacer- Huge thanks for giving me a reason to show up and more reasons than that to stay. (It was his second time and he definitely didn’t go in worried about injury or anything…as far as I can tell he’s the best one. Legend in my literal book.)

Thanks Dad for Everything and the Camera. Thanks Mom and Dad for the sense of adventure.

And especially thank you Crazy Mountain 100 for existing, and letting me find my way back to the herd.

Guess it’s time to start saving for a boat.

“11am”

Stream of Consciousness essay.

Tues Nov 5, 2024

The thoughts flow from the well like a fountain lately but none of them seem to move with any direct intention. Poetry seems to come and go, but other than that trying to pin down my thoughts are akin to trying to hold a flame in my hand. If I try to squeeze the flame goes out and I feel the burn.

It isn’t for lack of inspiration, I think it’s the opposite. The Aquifer to my spring seems to be overflowing in every direction and the schedule I have once kept to gather fresh water has to adjust. I might even have to build a well, perhaps one day a power source if this river continues to grow. When the streams all decide to meet something truly special will come together in my mind, so for now I take the time to let the water rise, even if it’s overwhelming. Everything is overwhelming in the best possible way.

The music is just another part that seems to just be flowing a long. The vision has become slightly blurred, but the light down the path is brighter. So long as I can see what’s in front of my face to keep my bearings, all is well. Even now trying to continue on and share where my consciousness makes it difficult to grab the words out of the air. When moments ago they were all ready to be written. The vibrations seem to get closer and closer together; like I have to decide and decipher which ones are for me to hear and which are for me to create.

So much has changed for everything to be so familiar. So much of me has become something new just to blossom into the flower I always saw in my mind. Maybe that’s the trick to this. Protecting the dream of ourselves with such vigor we can slowly become that without the world’s opinions making any difference. Keeping our fears so close to our chest that we fall in love with them. Running so free that we take hurt after hurt; to only ever slow down to heal and continue to trudge.

The Riverbanks flood and the water finds new places to flow sometimes but my streams seem to be converging in the same direction. In such a way that I continue to be surprised, but that too is my own design. Choosing not to know or pretend to know is a real concurrence that most don’t want to participate in. I guarantee the more you release and admit you don’t know for a fact or certainty, the more you’ll be allowed to learn. I didn’t make the rules, I just follow em.

And so it goes…

A Large Timid Creature-Poem

[Berlin February 26//Revised March 11, 2024]

I am a large timid monster,

a creature of love and hope.

A human of too much empathy.

One whose Love never elopes.

I move and writhe and work in pain.

My Rage and Energy is not without disdain.

My pain is Real,

with rights to heal.

Just like all those here to feel.

No matter the rain, my storm does loam and washes the tears of Fear.

Being timid, like being kind, does not mean I am without vigor. My courage breadths and stretches out as I move inside the meteorically volatile world that we have made our existence.

I live, I breathe, I sometimes seethe in this consciousness. No Rhymes left, to stand bereft to the growling of it all.

A Timid Creature, of love and hope.

Unpopular Opinions-Essay

[March 24, 2024//Revised and added June 16 2024//Final draft September 3, 2024]

It’s well known that all men want a mother….. that isn’t a mother in their lives, especially in a partner. That is a simple truth so many escape in some way and not other because of experience…And Vice Versa; Why is it some secret implication though? That if a man has a GOOD relationship (even with problems can still be good) and lasting relationship with his matriarch (and vice versa)- that he is not capable of so much more…And so much of all of us is determinate of this very Freudian, very over salted take on the basis of gender rules and roles. SO enjoy the salt with me for just a moment.

How do we break it apart other than by defining the difference and responsibilities of the man’s self and the community he chose to shape him. His biases and subconscious work on this basic level and realization of one’s rearing is just one part of this realization. With any luck all of that comes quickly for all of us. This is all just merely step one…in the penultimate goal of buttering self and forming community- or even….Imagine…GOD I hate that word…but stay with me and imagine forming a family you see coming and didn’t know what to do but say yes to because nature made you be around more than you wanted to be.

Family units shift. People come and go but if you get a core group of stupid ass dreamers then weird things start happening. When it’s even happened in my life then I know we are all in for a shock. Stick together through all the strange vibrations and short circuited moments to arrive at things maybe being comfortable and ok for once. A way to pass along a legacy of positive human interaction instead of just being such a goddamned bummer all the time. Rather than yet another kind heart gone to waste on something as stupid as the war that society wants us to fight, instead of just loving and letting love be.

We have decimated every bit of our solid community. Even gardening has been ruined. Cooking has either been medicalized for survival or treated as some risqué affair not to be imparted on unless your intentions are impure.

Or worse….categorized as “Therapeutic.”

These are the cores of our essence and evolution. Things that are lore to our existence….and yet in the modern capitalized world out there….those tasks have been filed either as means for peaking our monetary income instead of being our nature to do and enjoy together. The premise of survival has had the essence of its plot changed. Our meanings have been confused and our instincts absolutely honed to be extreme instead of trusted.

The “therap-ication” of every second of our daily lives is ruining just simply living and enjoying it. Those things make us run up ladders of steps and chase our tails instead of MAKING A FUCKING CHOICE. Those things which are closes to our humanness deduced to nothing meaningful for so many of us now.

What then, (who the hell do I think I am, Thoreau? nahhhh try again.)

What the fuck are we supposed to do about it? What’s left at the center? Our means of physical and spiritual creation-our ONENESS- our center that holds us and then in turn helps hold our communities together….no matter how new and shallow they may feel. We are given chances in life to be exactly who were are and we have to take them.

We have to stop trying to take our own vibrations and hiding them away. Everything we are. Man must stop filing everything under me, and instead file it under the “we” and the “us.” Every decision we make to be there for one another is another step in the right direction for everyone.

Stream of Consciousness Essay.  ~Signal Flow~

August 20, 2024 [Orlando]

More of this.

Me…us…We…moving too quickly or too slowly to the temperature of whatever room we are supposed to be taking up. Creating charge and feedback loops of energy in our own minds when struck with a certain part of my own perception. Dictating precisely even on days when the overall connections are short-circuiting because of the constant inflow of information. Watching precisely those situations continue to unfold around me and synchronize in ways I could not fully explain vocally if I spent hours trying to do so. The usual. It’s Tuesday.

The synchronicity is enough to make one throw up and go mad with deranged intensity. So instead, I find the methods to plug in and out of those signal. They remain ubiquitous and clocked in a present way that suits the temperature for now. Not the other way around. Fine tuning my place in the current so that I either remain unnoticed, or give presence that remains unbeknownst to my continuous reflections, until some cause and effectual takes up space in my mind enough to flow.

No longer being so hasty or too sluggish; instead sitting in a place of resistance. Passing said currents onto another part of the system that even I, now, find myself quietly remaining. A piece on the board. In place to receive signals and know where they go next. The continuous river of charge; Until one moves too quick or the temperature changes the constant once again.

Sometimes, we are not so lucky. Resistors get overcharged, the overall system gets out of synchronization and eventually… It all just stops. While in metaphor, it is easy to see one must simply continue and fix the problems. Humans instead are silly, stupid, stir crazy creatures that never cease to cling to their reasons why something happened, or even ask themselves if they caused it in some sort of purpose to shut things down for even a moment. Searching for rest is the one thing a computer will do automatically when left idol for too long, as long as it is given the directive.

So where is our directive? Why is rest unacceptable? What in the system we have been misplaced in SAYS we have to continue on this way. Saying the turret of organization is beyond our own fascinations is just foolish. Failing to give ourselves even the hope of our own direction is finding the way into a space that perhaps our current will never properly fit. For instance, installing a component in the wrong place and sending it charge; the lack of internal purpose becomes obvious.

It simply just ceases to work after a while.

When you’re finally installed in the correct place, that, too, can be crippling. Especially when you’ve been burnt before. Feeling like a spare part that lives somewhere outside the main functioning pieces and in a pile with the rest for so long can leave you feeling beyond repair.

The difference that we have in perpetuation, is that we have the capacity to heal as well. A far greater tool than simply repairing. We are a whole system- if we stop only functioning on our laurels and the things that only make us the most useful to larger machines that we were never meant to be installed in to begin with.