Tag Archives: trail-running

(Nature) Photos From An(other) Ultramarathon

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Welcome to the latest in the long, recurring series of posts sharing photos I took while my wife ran very long distances. This time, as a special treat, my son was also running. Not me – I walked around slowly and looked for flowers and spiders.

This past weekend, Kim and John ran a 50K (31 mile) race as part of the FlatRock 101 Ultramarathon along the Elk River Hiking Trail near Independence, Kansas. This was only John’s second 50K run – his first was on the same trail back in September, 2024. In that first race, he finished well behind Kim. This time, he actually beat Kim by about 5 minutes, something I’m sure Kim is absolutely and totally fine with.

Having Kim and John running at similar paces throughout the day made it easier for me to meet them at aid stations and top off their water, etc. as they came through. Since I didn’t have to wait long for one or other to come through station after the other passed, I had more time in-between those stops to wander around with my camera.

Unfortunately, the day was very bright and sunny and there was a strong breeze. It was a great day for running, but a challenging one for photography. As a result, I spent a couple hours doing some photography in the morning, but found other ways to entertain myself the rest of the day.

Rose vervain (Glandularia canadensis) flowers, backlit by the morning sun.
More rose vervain in dappled woodland light.
Groundsel (Packera obovata?) at the edge of a wooded area

It was fun to be considerably south of home and see a lot of spring flowers that aren’t yet blooming further north. I didn’t have time to wander very far, so I didn’t get to see nearly as many as Kim and John saw, but apparently there were spiderworts, columbine, phlox, and many others blooming along the trail. I mostly hung out in a little wooded area where I found some flowers, spiders, and fungi.

As a prairie guy, of course, woodlands are not my favorite ecosystem, but I don’t dislike woodlands, and can enjoy a good walk through the trees as much as anyone. In this case, I headed to the woods mostly because of the light conditions. The sun was incredibly bright from almost the minute it breached the horizon in the morning, so lighting was really harsh out in the open. In addition, all the grassy areas close to the race’s aid stations were pretty encroached by trees and shrubs anyway, so I was going to be around woody plants no matter where I went.

In the trees, I could at least find a few areas where the light was being diffused by distant tree leaves and branches. Most of the woodland was in shade, which isn’t ideal for photography, but there were scattered patches of diffused sun and I walked from one to the next, looking for anything interesting.

There were lots of spiders and webs strung between the trees, which kept me busy for a while. I also found a lot of mushrooms and other fungi. The trick was to find the ones that were also well-lit.

A sheet web spider (filmy dome spider?).
Eastern red cedar leaf dangling from spider silk.
A bowl and doily spider in its web.
A hygroscopic earthstar fungus.
Mushrooms in dappled light.
A broken mushroom.

A quick note on the runners, since they were the reason for the trip: Kim has been running ultramarathons for quite a while now, so a 50K has become a fairly typical distance for her to train for. This particular trail was a challenging one because it is rough and rocky in places, has some hills, and it had rained hard the night before, making it muddy as well. We don’t have a lot of rocky, hilly, muddy trails for Kim to train on near our home, so it’s hard for her to prepare for a race like this. She really wanted to run this trail in the spring, though, partly because it’s a good time to see wildflowers. (I like to see spring wildflowers, too, but go about it very differently.)

And here’s Kim approaching the finish line.

John was running in only his second ultra. He and Kim now listen to a lot of the same running podcasts, follow some of the same well-known races and runners, and send each other running memes and training tips. It was really cool to see John improve tremendously from his first attempt. I think he enjoyed himself, but immediate post-race conversations aren’t usually the time to get positive reflections from runners. He mostly talked about rocks, his ankles, and his intense dislike for life, running, and pretty much everything else.

Here’s John after running nearly 31 miles.

Kim is John’s step mom, so he didn’t inherit his stamina or training discipline from her, at least not via genetics. However, they share an ability to push through pain, which is obviously important in this sport. There isn’t, as far as I know, an official slogan for long-distance trail running, but if I was asked to write one, it would probably be something like, “A great way to explore nature while in constant discomfort.” It’s hard to believe the sport doesn’t have more participants, isn’t it?

I’m grateful to Kim (and now John) for all the training they do for these races because it allows me to tag along and see fun places while they do most of the work. After all, I got to lie on the ground in the woods for a couple hours looking at spiders and mushrooms! (It’s hard to believe macro photography doesn’t have more participants, isn’t it?)

Prairie Boy Visits the Ouachita National Forest

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Well, Kim and I had another ultramarathon vacation last weekend. We were down in eastern Oklahoma for the Ouachita Switchbacks 50K race. While Kim and her fellow runners were performing insane feats of athleticism on very steep, rocky trails, I wandered around a little with my camera, looking for anything visually-interesting in the dormant forests of the Ouachita Mountains. No one cheered for me.

The race took place on the Ouachita Switchbacks Running Trail, though I think they tacked on a little extra mileage to get to a 50 kilometer total distance. (It feels wrong to say “mileage” in that context. Is there a word that does the same work but in metric? Kilometerage? Probably not. We’ll just go with “length”. They added a little length to the route.)

Anyway, the trail winds through the Ouachita National Forest, full of shortleaf pine, a variety of oak species, black bears (supposedly, though I didn’t see any), and – last weekend – a bunch of crazy trail runners. Kim and I had come down once before for this race a few years ago, but snow and cold weather had made part of the trail inaccessible and they shortened the race to 25 kilometers. This time, Kim got to run the full distance. Lucky her.

Most of the morning was dark and overcast (and cold) but the sky brightened a little around noon and I took advantage of the better light. Here are some of the scenes I photographed between stops at aid stations to be supportive to my athlete wife.

Shortleaf pines and rocks.
More shortleaf pines on steep slopes.

I griped good-naturedly to Kim that there was nothing but trees and rocks to see, but of course that wasn’t really true. There was, however, a lot of brown. That meant that anything green really stood out and caught my eye. Mosses, ferns, and pine needles, especially. I was drawn to those green patches and spent a lot of time photographing them.

An acorn on a bed of moss.
A stick on a bed of moss. Makes me want to sleep on a bed of moss.
Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides), I think. Supposedly this species keeps its fronds vertical until after the leaves fall and then lays them down on top of the leaves to catch more sunlight through the winter. Pretty cool strategy.
More shortleaf pines.
A shortleaf pine with a pocket full of needles.
The photo every photographer is required to take in a forest.

I don’t really know what healthy woodlands look like in that part of the world, but the trees seemed to be growing pretty close together in many places and there didn’t seem to be much on the ground besides needles and leaves. I saw very few herbaceous plants, though maybe they were there and just buried under last fall’s oak leaf drop? I’m guessing the site could use some healthy fire, but I need to be careful applying my prairie sensibilities to other ecosystems.

There was a lot of fungus growing on downed logs and dead trees. It all looked the same to me, but my expertise on fungus wouldn’t fill a thimble, so who knows? I used it as foreground for photos and didn’t sweat too much about identification.

Fungus on a log. Maybe a false turkey tail fungus? I don’t know.
More of the same fungus. Or maybe a different species altogether.
More fungus. It was growing on a tree. Does that help with identification? :)

I saw some small trees that I thought were ironwood (Ostrya virginiana) because they were holding their leaves through the winter like that species does in Nebraska oak woodlands. When I examined them up close, though, they definitely weren’t ironwood and I thought they looked more like maples. Kim, after she was done running, said she thought they were oaks, and once she said that, I was sure she was right (and not just because she’s my wife).

Now, there’s a species called the maple-leaf oak (Quercus acerifolia) that is endemic to the area. The fact that I saw an oak that I first thought was a maple makes me wonder if I was actually seeing maple-leaf oaks, but after some online reading, I’m very skeptical. There are only a few populations of the species in the world, so I’m guessing maybe I was just looking at dried leaves of black oak.

Winter tree identification in the mountains of Oklahoma is not something this Nebraska prairie boy is adept at. Any help from people more local to the Ouachitas?

An oak species that looks to me like maple-leaf oak, but surely couldn’t be, right?

Kim finished the race before dark, which was no easy feat, given the distance, terrain, and the fact that she trains in east-central Nebraska, where hills are scarce and not nearly as steep as the Ouachitas. She was very tired. I was too, of course. It takes a lot of energy to walk slowly around the forest looking for mosses and acorns. We were both glad to retreat to the nearby cabin to eat and sleep before driving all the way home the following day.

As I always do in forested hills or mountains, I yearned for clear views of the horizon while walking around the Ouachitas. There were a few scenic overlooks where I got brief reprieves from my mild claustrophobic feelings, but they were few and far between. Still, it’s a really beautiful landscape down there and I’m sure it’s even more lovely during the growing season when there’s a lot more green. I hope to get back there sometime and explore some more.