In March 2023, I was chasing fuzzy yellow balls that led me to my first experience of California’s historic Catalina Island. I was on vacation developing my tennis skills with two professional coaches and friends, Dayday and Daytri Kay, based in Long Beach, CA. While there, I caught wind that the forty-sixth edition of California’s oldest trail marathon, The Catalina Island Marathon , was being held that same week. Long Beach, one of the main ferry ports offering rides to Catalina, was an easy jumping off point to the island. I wanted to see what the event was all about, as well as to give my shoulder a day’s rest after hitting tennis serves for hours each day that week!
Due to a mixup in scheduling, I unfortunately missed the race, but I was able to visit the island and was enchanted by my experience. I hiked for nearly eight hours on the island’s vast expanse of trails and jeep roads and soaked up the incredible views, many from over 1,800 feet above sea level. I hiked through blankets of low-hanging clouds to find blue sky and sunshine.
My return ferry boat ride was an equally surreal experience as our boat was tailed for several miles by a superpod of dolphins. For those unfamiliar with the above animal lingo, a “superpod” is the term used to describe larger pods of dolphins that can range in the hundreds or even thousands—the one following our boat was likely comprised of two to three hundred.
My first experience of the island was unforgettable and left me with a desire to build back my running strength to compete in the marathon one day. Little did I know at the time that one year later, on March 9, 2024, I’d be strong enough to not only race the Catalina Island Marathon, but take the win and run a new marathon PB (personal best) on a challenging course with over 4,000 feet of elevation gain. Below is the story of how following a trail of fuzzy yellow tennis balls got me there…
The race course on scenic Catalina Island. Photo: Peter Maksimow
Chasing fuzz
In March 2023, my life was more flexible than it’s ever been. My lease on the house I was renting in Buena, Vista, Colorado was ending a month later and I had booked a trip to Nepal in April for 45 days to document the trail running scene there (read articles recapping some of my Nepal adventures here.
During this time, I found myself turning inwards, writing and goal setting. For a Renaissance man with many interests including cheese making, music, writing, trail running, chocolate making, and Nordic skiing (to name a few), there was one interest that was captivating my attention more than all the rest—tennis. In particular, the tennis serve.
My mother has memories of me with a tennis racquet in my hand at four years old. Tennis was my first sport and still to this day I look up to many heroes from this sport who have inspired not just my tennis journey, but influenced the kind of athlete I am in trail running and Nordic skiing. The humility and elegance of Roger Federer, the explosiveness of Andy Roddick, the determination of Maria Sharapova, the precision and tactics of Justine Henin are all values I learned from watching hours upon hours of tennis and getting to know these characters. The tennis court is a stage where viewers witness a rawness of emotion and vulnerability that few sports display. I remember crying watching the last match of Andre Agassi’s career in 2006 as he left the court with similarly teary eyes, blowing kisses to the crowd.
I traded competitive tennis for running in high school, largely because I could share running with my dad and I discovered a talent in the sport that I pursued into college and beyond. Although I consider running my main sport now, I still enjoy playing tennis, spending time honing my skills, and sharing the game with others. The greatest part about both tennis and running: they are lifelong sports.
I would describe my tennis game style as that of a “counter-puncher,” or one who excels at redirecting pace and developing winners by using the speed of the opponents shots and turning it against them. I redirect the pace of difficult shots, ones that might pass for winners against less trained opponents, but I often struggle to generate pace of my own—especially on the serve. The serve was always the weakness in my game.
Ready, set, serve!
In March 2023, I spent more time than ever before reflecting on the serve. It is arguably the most difficult shot to master, particularly for a counter puncher like myself. Where counter punchers rely on their opponents to generate pace, strong servers must always find the strength from inside themselves. In fact, the serve is the only shot in the entire game of tennis that is not reactionary and is completely in the server’s control. The ball toss, swing speed, serve type (flat, spin, or slice), direction and pace, are all within control of the server, not the opponent. The sense of purposeful self-direction required for powerful serving is intimidating. To miss when everything, including the ball, is in your own hands, is something I feared.
My fascination and fears with the serve became philosophical even more than athletic. I started to have thoughts such as “I am good at redirecting the shots life hits at me, rebounding from difficult situations to get back to the baseline, but when it comes to setting the directions of my own shots in life, why do I often feel lost? What direction should I serve next? What’s my next move in life?”
In response to these questions building inside me, I decided to go for an unexpected serve. I left my life in Colorado behind for a week and road tripped to Long Beach where I met up with my coaching buddies Daytri and Dayday Kay, two accomplished servers who crack the ball routinely over 120MPH. It was time to work on my serve on, and off, the court.
Hours upon hours of ball baskets were served that week with the Kays. In our five-plus hours of daily training, my coaches also incorporated more unconventional drills such as swinging a sock with a tennis ball inside it that gave me the feeling of being a ninja with nunchucks. We practiced hitting tennis balls with baseball bats (much harder than a racquet!) and incorporated gym drills to develop specific muscle groups as well as hone feel and aim. I was becoming the Karate Kid of tennis!
The experience of pure dedicated training and expert coaching helped me find direction. During that week, I wasn’t just reacting to life, but actively deciding my place in it by choosing to play this sport I still had much passion for. I left Long Beach hitting a new fastest serve, 103MPH, cracking into the triple digits for the first time in my entire tennis career. More importantly than the speed, however, I had confidence in myself and ability to follow through and commit to other shots in life.
Tayte cracks a 103mph serve.
A week after returning to Colorado, I went on to set a new record at the Leadville Ski Equinox 24-hour Nordic ski event (read my recap of this event here). I also felt the confidence to travel solo across Nepal in search of interesting stories and later arrived in Taos, New Mexico to pursue passions for farming and goat cheese/chocolate making. My serving practice taught me that some shots might miss the mark, but with enough practice aiming the ball in the right directions, life will start to go in those same right directions too.
Churning Mud on Catalina Island
“I feel like we just played tennis with Roger Federer!” remarks my tennis coach and buddy Daytri Kay as we share breakfast after a run together. It’s March 8, 2024, the day before I will run the Catalina Island Marathon for the first time. I met up with Daytri and Dayday for a quick shakeout run and to catch up on how far we’ve all come since my life-changing tennis ‘train-cation’ with them a year prior.
Flanked by his tennis buddies, Tayte enjoys a pre-race shakeout run.
By boat, by foot
My legs felt good in spite of a topsy-turvy training block. I overcame a few niggles and less marathon-specific training than I would have liked, but I was running fast. My “running serves,” so to speak, were landing inside the box effortlessly. I could trust the consistency in my training, having run six days per week at 7,000 feet altitude in Taos, NM in my most recent training block. I had a feeling like I’d just served an entire basket of balls without missing once. Although I’d certainly not achieved enough to be considered the Roger Federer trail running equivalent, Daytri’s comment lit me up. It was uplifting to have caring coaches who extend their support and wisdom beyond their tennis expertise and into my running.
The three of us hit tennis balls for a quick thirty minutes that morning. I knew I shouldn’t hit more than that so as to keep my legs fresh for the marathon, but I couldn’t resist playing. I was feeling like Roger Federer in both my running and tennis court shoes.
There’s magic in my race experience from the 2024 Catalina Island Marathon: reconnecting with my tennis coaches, running the race with two friends competing in the marathon and 10K, providing content for the American Trail Running Association with my good friend and colleague Peter Maksimow, and experiencing the island with my leg s— running from one end to the other in one of the most beautiful point-to-point courses in which I’d ever competed.
Read on to learn what has been most impactful in terms of my running journey, as well as what makes the Catalina Island Marathon stand out from other races I’ve run.
Perfecting pressure at the Catalina Island Marathon
Signing up for a marathon inevitably builds feelings of pressure. The standard distance of a marathon – 26.2 miles –is no small challenge physically or mentally. The damage to the body and the mental capacity required to push through pain is something that even experienced runners acknowledge as difficult. Most spend weeks or months training specifically for their marathon in order to maximize performance and minimize the risk of injury from the effort
I registered for the 2024 Catalina Island Marathon in December 2023, giving myself ample time to train. It would be the first race in three years I had trained specifically for since undergoing ankle surgery in April 2021. Although I have spent time running in the past three years, the added pressure of competing in a race, let alone a marathon with over 4,000 feet of elevation gain, seemed daunting and potentially threatening to my slowly recuperating body. There have been times in my running career where I have developed or worsened injuries due to the impending pressure of a race that made me train too hard. I often find that too much pressure to race can actually worsen my performances or never even allow me to reach the start line because I’ll get injured beforehand.
But that’s not to say that all pressure is bad. The pressure of a race, especially one as demanding as a marathon, can help us discover new parts of ourselves, push our limits, and find meaning in pursuits when we strive with others towards the common goal of crossing the finish line. The key is to find the right balance of pressure that feels manageable, not overwhelming, and recognize that our feelings of pre-race stomach butterflies are not expressions of fear as much as they are expressions of how much crossing that finish line means to us. In the words of tennis legend, Billie Jean King, “Pressure is a privilege. It only comes to those who earn it.”
The pressure I felt before the Catalina Island Marathon certainly felt like a privilege. I had more support than I’ve had at almost any race, which not only gave me strength during the race but provided meaning to my daily training. I signed up for the race with a friend from New Mexico, who I traveled with and who brought her partner and his two daughters to cheer for us. My friend’s son also raced the 10K, which led to a beautiful moment after the race between mother and son when they both accomplished their goals of completing their first marathon and 10K respectively. I also had the support of my tennis coaches and close friend and colleague Maksimow. Knowing this race would be a shared journey infused meaning in my training and encouraged me to manage pressures that might have overwhelmed me in years prior.
The beauty that is Catalina Island, Photo: Peter Maksimow
A 5:00 a.m. ferry boat arrived in Catalina’s main tourist port, Avalon, to take me and approximately 450 marathon runners to the start line on the far side of the island at the Two Harbors port. Our boat was chased by seagulls as we watched the sunrise to the east, which gradually illuminated the island’s steep cliffs rising sharply out of the ocean.
“No way! That’s what we have to run up,” remarked a runner on the boat as we looked out to the high points of the course ascending over 1,800 feet from the ocean. I’d never had the experience where a race course so clearly displayed the challenges to participants immediately before the race. This ferry boat ride across the island was a much more visceral way to understand the seriousness of the physical undertaking before us than any pre-race briefing or course profile could ever have provided. My eyes remained glued to the island before me, much of which is preserved natural lands that I would soon be discovering at the 7AM race start. Given the recent rains and storms in California, I reminded myself I am what they call in horse racing “a mudder.” I race best when the course is tough and muddy. This course would be a good fit.
Tayte on course at the 2024 Catalina Island Marathon.
As we charged off the start line, I could feel my altitude lungs give me strength. I found myself running alone within the opening 100 meters of the race and continued to push until I couldn’t see another runner in sight. Although my lungs felt strong, I didn’t consider how I hadn’t trained my legs to be running at such a relatively quick race. If my legs fatigued, I would pay for my strong start later in the race, but at that moment the only thing on my mind was setting the pace. I wanted to put pressure on myself to run to my limits, and to manage a consistent hurt for 26.2 miles.
I ran with no watch, water bottle or snacks, but refueled quickly at aid stations and dunked my hat in cold stream crossings, cooling off and smiling at the sound of frog ribbits every time I approached the water. From the high points of the course I could see the snow capped San Bernardino mountains east of Los Angeles and 360 degrees of ocean views. It was one of the most beautiful courses I’d ever run.
At the finish line of the 2024 Catalina Island Marathon. Photo: Peter Maksimow
My legs started to tire at mile 14, but I maintained a steady rhythm without slowing too drastically. I found a second wind to give one strong surge on the course’s final climb to mile 19. It was a crux point in the race, to be able to climb over 1,000 feet to the high point of the course after already running over sixteen miles. I had laid it all on the line and it was enough for the win. I cruised into the finish line and felt the same exhilaration of cracking the 100MPH barrier on a serve for the first time. I had just raced an ace.
