Cade Michael

In the end, Waldo found himself. ——— There’s a lot of funny lore and theories out there about Waldo. Some say he’s a government spy. Some say he’s an inter-dimensional entity that jumps around space-time and poses the threat of time-point paradox when he’s found. Some say he’s the ‘patron saint of quiet nonconformity’. I think that last one probably gets closest. Waldo is me, you, the reader, the seeker, the thinker, the one asking ‘where’. We see ourselves in the mysterious man of spectacles and pinstripes because Waldo is the individual who stands unique amidst the chaos, crowds, and commotion. The environments he’s hidden in are a mess of distraction and noise - albeit usually full of fun and interest and whimsy - yet he seems content to be present there, wherever there is, despite being different than those around him. He’s unashamed and unafraid to wear his striped sweater and beanie at the beach, the carnival, or the city park. The world swirls around him and yet he’s entirely comfortable in his difference without being resentful of it. When I run, I feel like Waldo. I’m confident and comfortable and able to express myself ‘round a track, up a mountain, along a road, or even on a treadmill. I yap with my friends without a filter, without sculpting the me they see. I don’t homogenize to where, when, or who. Sometimes I lose that in races. In a sea of talented athletes with different training, different media presences, different resumès…differences…I forget that my own just adds to that tapestry of technicolor. I feel as though to achieve a similar ‘what’ I have to have a similar ‘how’, and worse, a similar ‘why’. I wore a striped shirt on Sunday to express that sense of self somewhere amidst the saguaro and singletrack. On second thought, maybe Waldo is a time-travelling cosmic being and, if he is, he’s choosing to be on that exact beach on page 7 right as you find him. My page 7 beach is running a race, and it’s there that I found myself. 📸: @somerrunner (1.2.5.6) @graciehinz (3.4) Martin Handford (7) 🏁: @aravaiparunning @blackcanyonultras

it’s puzzles, not pictures worth solving. racing this season has been frustrating. moving up in distance has proved challenging and far from the fairytale entry to ultra I (thought that I) wanted…needed. it’s a bit paradoxical, but on the one hand the longer races are less nerve racking - less hangs on the balance of a fine line of particulars. but simultaneously the sheer amount of moving pieces in the system increases the likelihood of one misfiring. when you stretch out the performance, it’s as if you are looking in one of those ghastly bathroom magnifying mirrors - imperfections glare back, exacerbated and unable to be ignored. 3 races over 3.5 hrs & 3 uniquely brutal days in the saddle. canyons: loss of vision, consciousness. 7th. broken arrow: debilitating body-wide cramping. 7th. silver rush: altitude sickness above 11k ft. 12th. these aren’t excuses, they’re solvable problems that are my faults, failures, and mistakes - ones I should have been more prepared for. but more importantly, they’re data points. I’m learning & have plenty more to before I nail one, and will have plenty more after as well. it’s a massive puzzle, ultra-trail. fluid, carbs, calories, sodium, chloride, eccentric contractions, technicality, vert, conditions, gear, crew, pacing, patience. a jigsaw with an often overwhelming amount of pieces. but I can see the image being fleshed out. I can feel the gaps being filled in. and that feeling of progress is why we solve puzzles to begin with. the completed set sits on the coffee table far shorter than the scrambled mystery. it seems I’ve still a whole lot of unscrambling left to do - and that’s exhilarating. 📸: @dylanjtanner @pglace @petermaksimow ✍️: @ bill watterson 📍: somewhere out west

DEATH OVER DNF silver rush 50. altitude sickness got me good pretty early on yesterday and running became a no go lest I lose contact with this world. but I could walk. so I walked. and jogged when I could. and finished. and I may be a little embarrassed by this string of results, but I’m real proud of that. for my friends, crew, family, race organizers, volunteers, participants, and those that would give anything to do so - death over dnf. 📸: @pglace 1/3, @dylanjtanner 2 🏁: @leadvilleraceseries silver Rush 50 mile 📍: leadville, co.

eventually ruts fill and become rivers in sync & having a blast w/ @andywacker lately. 400’s on the track, K’s on the road, threshold up sunshine canyon, & shuffles with fig — and that was this week. things are rolling in boco. I woke up pretty early to eat a pancake or two before we went up gold hill Sunday — here’s something I jotted down in those wee hours. — we try to fill the void with music over madness or other’s voices in our heads to drown out our own.  we revel in the experience & effort but we regard the existential essentiality a hushed, ominous drone.  for Strava, or with Spotify, or to justify safari’s many shops of shoes, we trade passivity for presence & hide behind a phone.  guilty of gizmos & gadgets, ketones & carbon  in the name of science & performance & adhering to zones. we’ve lost the joy & feel & longing of wonder & exploration into the unknown.  i fear this modern love of movement is lust for what we reap  and no longer passion for what is sown.  it’s not the distance to run we fear, but the time we must run alone.  🚡: @the_trail_team 📍: gold hill, colorado ⏳: @mountainroche for the crazy mark (he went down too) 🤯

Hot day January, No mittens necessary! getting the season rolling here at home this weekend. starting things off saturday (today) with some indoor pacing duties @ CU before kicking things off on Sunday @oldmanwinterrally . leave the balaclavas & bundles at home & come join me down valley from the Jamestown ferry in Lyons for what looks to be a balmy spring boulder day. 🚠: @the_trail_team 📍: Bo, Co 🏁: @oldmanwinterrally 🥤: @naakbars

2025: return of the (sub)super shoe. I think simple running shoes might just make a comeback. My first pair of Vaporflys literally changed my relationship with running and, as a result, my life. But somewhere in the post-pandemic carbon-plated pandemonium, we opened Pandora’s box. A super-saturated supershoe market is the status quo now, but to paraphrase Watts - like anything, they’re a great tool but a bad master. I wrote about why over on Patreon (it’s free) at the link in bio. 🎥: @hankweaves

the nuances of creativity & endurance. I started a Patreon! Really it’s just a blog & this seemed like the easiest place to do it. I run a lot of miles, wear a lot of shoes for those miles, and have a lot of time to come up with alliterative phrases during those miles, so I decided I ought to write a little about those things. Cade-nce Running (NCE meaning “the nuances of creativity and endurance” to accommodate my self-titling vanity) will be some concoction of shoe reviews, training methodologies and thoughts, and poems/ramblings about this absurd pastime. Any and all are welcome to share their versions of any of those things there as well. feel free to check it out or check back in! Cheers. 🔗 in bio 📸: @joshua_dwight

universe’s expanse hidden in heartbeats, exhales. not my best weekend @goldentrailseries final, but came away with a top 30 overall in the series and secured the chance to do it all again next year. - here’s an entry on uncertainty from the shores of Maggiore — John Keating stuck with me. Walter Mitty stuck with me. Mr. Fox stuck with me. Charles Hamilton Sorely, Quenton Cassidy, Satre, Camus, Jesus Christ stuck with me. The radicals. The failures. Those that lived in Roosevelt’s Arena, marred by blood and sweat and tears. Not in some barbaric fashion from duels with some foe, but from the toil with the uncertainty that inescapably accompanies freedom. The possibility of “just” and “not quite”. Who let themselves dream. Who never “knew” but always “thought”. Things that hold childlike wonder in their essence are dear to me: Sci-FI, Legos, Novels, Fantasy, metaphor, hyperbole. Not because they are inherently for children, actually quite the opposite — because they inspire wonder — a trait held exclusively by those that explore and create in the unknown. So too does racing. The challenge to see who can get to the street sign first. A childlike wonder into the unknown of “how fast I can go” and “is it faster than him”. I fear adulthood poses a decision between wonder and certainty. And I fear adulthood heralds predictability over a framed delusion. The closer we get to the great mystery that holds infinite uncertainty and wonder, the more desperately we grasp for a rung on the ladder, despite continuing a descent into the cavernous void. But knowing where and that there are, in fact, rungs to come is comforting. Such is religion and clergy in a field of mystery. Such are degree plans and required credits in a place of exploration. Such are destinations and deadlines in a space of curiosity. Such are paces and goals and places in an activity of freedom. Here’s to leaning into the wonder of uncertainty. Here’s to racing. not quite done. headed to the desert for one more next weekend (over dramatic Edward Abbey inspired thoughts surely to follow)🏴‍☠️🏜️ 📸: @rising.story 🚠: @the_trail_team 📍: Locarno, Switzerland 🏁: @goldentrailseries Grand Final

swiss slip n’ slide. let’s ride. 7km Prologue for the @goldentrailseries Grand Final tomorrow here in Locarno. Forecast looks like a half hour of rain, mud, & madness. Andiamo. 🇨🇭🇺🇸🏴‍☠️

one step back, precipice becomes H O R I Z O N took a swing at my first ultra & snagged 1st place & an OCC spot @utmbworldseries @ultratrailwhistler up in British Columbia this weekend. - here’s some inklings from 4 hours in the alpine — “Was this the big secret of the [ultra] marathon? That once you got in really superb long-distance shape it was simply a zen-like day dream or a race that went on until people started running out of gas?” - Again to Carthage No. It is for some. It can be for a while. But it’s never only that. Quenton learned that & so did I. Denton, Shorter - they knew. Jim, Zach, Eli - they know. There will be ebbs, flows, highs & lows. And yet, I can’t help but feel less intimidated by 50km & 9k ft of climbing than the daunting 28km & 4K ft the past couple of weeks. It’s not the pace. These days short ultras are so marginally slower than their sub ultra counterparts. Ask Chad, Jeff, Adam, Sinclair. But yet the feeling persists. It’s not the competition. No Elhousine, Patrick, Philemon, etc., sure, but I’ve done this enough to know I’ll be completely spent come the end. So where lies the confidence in something entirely foreign to me? Naïveté? Probably. But misplaced? It doesn’t feel like it. Those margins are where I live & die. Standing on a cliffside, the sheer drop is imminent, direct, and unpredictable. But one step back from that precipice & the end of the earth, where the world falls to the abyss, turns to solid ground. The edge meets the sky and the risk becomes the horizon. The consequence is still present, but the outcome is within your control. Plummeting depths still loom, but the one step back from peering into it, tempting it, changes field of vision & perception along with it. but despite that revelation I still went out too hard and blew up.🤷‍♂️ back to euroland in a couple weeks 🇨🇦🏴‍☠️ 📸: @ultratrailwhistler 🚠: @the_trail_team 📍: British Columbia, Canada 🏁: @utmbworldseries @ultratrailwhistler

sea to sky, a couple times. taking the west coast road trip up to the great white north & up in distance for a crack at the 50km @ultratrailwhistler stop on the @utmbworldseries . heard there’s some snow up there. time to get back in the alpine. 🇨🇦🏴‍☠️ 📸: @joshua_dwight 🚠: @the_trail_team 🏁: @ultratrailwhistler @utmbworldseries

freedom expressed 180 times per minute. 12th yesterday @goldentrailseries @mammothtrailfest & a golden ticket to the grand final in Switzerland. here’s a few thoughts from a hypoxic hippocampus — 7 days ago I had the best result of my life. Yet a few days and a couple hundred miles east later, I’ve never felt like more of an imposter. I ought to be as confident as I’ve ever been, yet all I feel is insecure. Insufficient. Untalented. Unworthy. Priveleged. That last weekend was a fluke? Sea level. Fast course. External factors. Super shoes. Questioning the altitude, the cold, the technicality, the training, the taper, the elevation profile, the strength of field. low bars are simpler anyway. the second we’re running I feel embarrassed for ever having the doubts in the first place. Were I presented a choice to be doing any thing in any place in this moment, I would choose to be doing exactly this thing, in exactly this place, in exactly this moment — what a rare convergence & opportunity that is. Running with my friends on a trail up a mountain to see who can get there first is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things that each subsequent step is a choice. If there were something else in someplace else at some other time I would choose to be doing, I simply could. I could just…stop. I’m under no obligation to continue self inflicting pain in pursuit of this ineffable and infinite golden snitch of performance. And yet, when you are cleaning a wound or pulling a tooth yourself (rather than a doctor, your mom - or both), something about the presence of choice and the ability to stop leads to carrying on. So each step I choose to continue is one in utter and direct defiance of the ability to just…stop. And I find that act of freedom, repeated at a frequency of around 180 steps per minute, an expression of joy. 7 days later & save a wrong turn & the scenic route, I just about one-upped it. Despite what this novel-like caption might otherwise suggest, It’s just running…it’s not that deep. see you in Suisse 🇨🇭🏴‍☠️ 📸: @goldentrailseries (1,3) @rising.story (2) @sodstudios 🚠: @the_trail_team 🏁: @goldentrailseries @mammothtrailfest