Written Work

Essays / Analysis / Race Reports

Welcome to the part of the site where I put down words that take longer than a build log entry to write. The stuff that needs room to breathe, space to meander, and occasionally permission to lie a little in service of a better story.

Most of what you'll find here is autobiographical - or at least, autobiographical-adjacent. I've lived a reasonably interesting life so far, full of ultramarathons and cruise ships and country music festivals and the kind of random encounters that only happen when you're the sort of person who talks to strangers at pizza joints. These are the stories that came out of that life, filtered through memory and shaped by the telling.

Here's the thing about memory, though: it's a lousy archivist. Details fade. Timelines compress. The brain fills in gaps with whatever feels right, and before you know it, you're not entirely sure if that conversation happened at a bar in Tamworth or a checkpoint at UTA or somewhere else entirely. So I've made peace with the fact that some of these stories are more true than they are accurate. The emotions are real. The lessons are real. The specifics? Those are negotiable.

If you think you recognise something in here - maybe something you were part of, some gig we played together, some trail we ran - then it's probably by accident. Or maybe not. Memory is funny that way. Yours might be better than mine, in which case I apologise for whatever I got wrong. Or yours might be worse, in which case you're welcome for the upgrade.

Just remember - if Hunter S. Thompson really had done all of the stuff he claimed to do, he probably wouldn't have been able to find the damn typewriter. The best stories have always lived somewhere between what happened and what should have happened. I'm just trying to find that sweet spot.


Race Reports

Ultramarathon stories from the Blue Mountains and beyond

A Well Executed Plan

UTA 100 | May 2017

The redemption story. After the heartbreak of 2016's DNF, this was the year everything came together - the training, the plan, the execution. A personal best of 17:48:10 and the sub-20 buckle.

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Sometimes You Eat the Trail...

UTA 100 | May 2016

...and sometimes it eats you. My first ever DNF at 60km on the Giant Staircase. ITB, undertraining, and the calm acceptance of knowing when to stop.

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Stories & Reflections

Life moments, random encounters, and the occasional existential crisis

Milestone 54

Life Moments

There are milestones in life that society marks for you. And then there's the first time you're offered a senior discount at the pool. Vincent Price's laugh included.

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The Bartender

Pizza & Persistence

There's this place I go to for pizza. Over four years, I watched a bartender chase his dream into the Australian Defence Force. Change happens slowly - until it doesn't.

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I Played Once

Tamworth 2014

A reflection from the end of the Tamworth Country Music Festival. About family, music, the briefness of life, and the spring which revitalises us year after year.

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