"Looking at the group assembling around us, we knew we were in for trouble. Twenty-year-olds wearing those really short running shorts and sleeveless tops idled on the starting line. Beanpole, 0% body fat dudes with water bottle belts and mesh hats compared their ultramarathon shirts, chuckling together at their past pursuits of pain. Hardened, white-haired gentlemen with sinewy legs of pure muscle ambled in the street with a self-confidence only decades of experience brings. We took it all in with knots in our stomach and dread in our thoughts. Josh said, “Holy shit. This is going to be tough.” Josh and I stood on Main Street in the small mountain town of Silverton, Colorado. Months earlier, a google on my last name ‘Kendall’ had led me to an interesting discovery: that a mountain in Colorado shares my name. Not only that, "my" mountain serves as the course for a leg-busting 13-mile up-and-down race, the annual Kendall Mountain Run. Beginning in the town of Silverton at elevation 9,318 ft, the run climbs steeply up old jeep trails for most of the way and ends in a scree scramble to the 13,066 ft summit of Kendall Mountain. I somehow got it in my head that this was a challenge I..." — scott • Jul 16, 2005