Loop de Loop
Field notes from the first quarter of 2026
I was watching Sex and the City and felt inspired to write in my own blog. Sarah Jessica Parker’s narration voice is something I do covet! It’s so buoyant, girly, and articulate! Does anyone truly love the sound of their own voice?
I’m currently writing this in the Taj Campton Hotel, the third hotel in the past 3 weekends, and wondering if I’m steadily growing a dependence on hotel beds for my beauty rests.
What to share? A few friends and I ran through the desert again and this time, we had a big boy sponsor: Toyota USA to guide us financially throughout the 300ish miles. The more I enmesh myself in this community, the more I realize how capitalism truly stays winning. Are ya winning, son? Yes!
Although, it might not come as a surprise to anyone, I feel myself so uninterested in competing as I used to. The very premise of winning, “being on top,” makes all the cells in my body hop on a boat to the Undying Lands in the West with trusty Gandalf by my side.
I’m perhaps at a stage in my life where I don’t want to contort my body to interrogate my absolute limits. And if I do, it’s going to be on my terms.
Me to me: my cortisol levels WILL stay net neutral.
So, you can see how this line of thinking comes into direct contradiction for a relay race like TSP. But having done this race so many times, my bodyguards (aka, my boundary battalions) understood the assignment. I decided to give a level of performance that I felt comfortable giving. Nothing more, nothing less (but maybe a little less if I wasn’t feeling it). I didn’t really tell anyone this going into the race, but I didn’t need to. It was a contract I made with myself to protect my body, my mind, and my own experience with a race that remains so demanding, year after year.
Practically, what the sponsorship meant was that everything was paid for. I am deeply grateful that so many of my relay experiences have been compensated for, but this Toyotathon sponsorship did more than cover expenses, they actually paid us like talent.
In hindsight, if I were to give myself advice, I would’ve really leveraged an agent or someone who intimately knew the industry a little more to help navigate the significance and implications of what a “sponsor” really meant. So many of us: new runners, amateur runners who literally just do this as a hobby, are often naive or harbor a feeling of deep gratitude that we’re getting something (anything!) in return for this hobby. For a car company whose net worth (market capitalization) is approximately $274.54 billion, I think we had some leverage to get some free Rav 4’s! Who’s with me!
Lol, jk… all this aside, I am thankful because what the hell? I never would have thought that we would be on billboards or be part of an AAPI x Toyota project. Although yes, the end goal is probably to sell more cars 😭, but it was so neat to be part of this project with the runners I knew and new runners, like Lono, Ray, and Jenny.
And ultimately, we did it. Paramount! 7th place! OG team of 3 girls and 3 boys. There isn’t much to say about this experience rather than saying that it never gets easier. But it now takes more than an experience like this for me to come out with profound or deep reflections about life. The last thing I’ll say is that I’m so deeply grateful for the crew, always and forever. Any crew who decides to help out with a race like this deserves all the flowers… (photos by Evan Perigo)
Then 7 days after that, I raced Desert Rat – 50K in Grand Junction, Colorado. Look, is it insane to run a 50K after running 50 miles the weekend before? Yes, but y’all, I had no choice. I had to run this to qualify for a UTMB race this fall. But as my therapist always tells me, “Rosa, you don’t have to do anything.” I know, Masha 😭!
I went with abysmal expectations but came out of it so delightfully surprised. I became enamored with the whole city. I was documenting like a big city journalist charmed by what a little city like Grand Junction offers. Okay, maybe not little city… sorry for weirdly infantilizing this quaint, rustic town in eastern Colorado. Sidebar: it’s also just curious that a global UTMB stone race is here… (?)
Anywho. It was refreshing to travel to a city where there aren’t a plateful of options of what to do, sometimes I wonder if it’s healthy to be surrounded by an infinity of choices in Los Angeles. Korean food? What type and region? Matcha? We got 30 cafes in a 2-mile radius!
In Grand Junction, there was 1 amazing cafe, a couple of grocery stores, and 1 James Beard nominated restaurant that I went to and asked if I could sit at the bar on my last evening there. I enjoyed a beet crudo and a tomato-based mussel dish. I chatted with my bartender, who gave me champagne to toast my race. I loved people-watching, looking at all the chefs and line cooks who were preparing wood fired pizzas and plating a dish that looked like a work of art. What are their stories? And then a man sat next to me at the bar who looked like the F1 driver Valtteri Bottas (the man next to me was also Eastern European lol). We started chatting, but my gut said hm (?!), and I quickly ended my meal and wished him well. It was when he asked me how long I was in town because he had a nice camper van lol. Anyways.
Y’all, I had a blast. The course too was stunning… I took my time. Walked the hard parts, shuffled on the flats, and just soaked in the sheer power of the Colorado River… she is that GIRL.
Sorry to break reality, but I am back in LA and didn’t finish this blog in time lol. I’m resting now and gearing up for our 1 last relay this spring: Southbound. But this time, I’ll be racing with KRC for the first time. I have never done a relay representing KRC, so I feel like this experience will be such a full-circle conclusion to a club that has meant the world to me.
Other highlights:
finished The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa during a 5-hour flight delay, and this book made me feel so many things… it explores a dystopian society where people continue to forget things, not by choice. Again, the eerie parallels with what we’re living through now and what we have lived through since the inception of this country.
binged Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey on Netflix about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) offshoot sect. Also made me feel disturbed, but in a way where I was just angry at the patriarchy and how it’s used to commit violence against the most vulnerable people. I was so floored by the bravery and compassion of the women who came forward to demand change.
been trying to try out more vegetarian recipes and enjoyed this mushroom + napa cabbage udon! I would add a tbsp of miso when you add the butter!
other than that, I want to finish a couple of paintings that I started during my interim phase in between jobs. I’m excited to be part of some meaningful projects coming up with Renegade, and just resting and hanging with Pepper. I’ve been continuing my digital detox. Sometimes I look at my phone and wonder what else to do there except to check my email. I appreciate when I have realizations like this because my phone is becoming a useless brick. GOOD! Yes. Let’s brick it up, y’all.
The “Bye!” 🤣 … undying lands
Let's brick it up! 🙌🏼😎